
Class " ffV;? i?7 



Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 



GOD'S PLAN FOR WORLD 
REDEMPTION 



God's Plan 

for 

World Redemption 

Jin Outline Study of the 
{Bible and Missions 



B\> CHARLES R. WATSON 



ILLUSTRATED 



The Board of Foreign Missions 

of the United Presbyterian Church of N. A. 

Philadelphia, Pa. 



3 



^1$ 



COPYRIGHT, 191 1, BY 
THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

OF THE 

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF 

NORTH AMERICA 



©CI.A283465 



To the i 
Men and Women 
whom I know 

WHO HAVE SEEN THE VISION 

of a 

Finished Task 

and live and labor 

for its realization. 



PREFACE 

THE need for a handbook whose aim would 
be to present the missionary message of 
the Bible, has led to the preparation of 
this book. Its central theme is the un- 
folding of God's Plan for World Redemption. 
The unfolding of this redemptive Plan is traced 
throughout that portion of human history whose 
record and whose interpretation are alike given 
in the Sacred Narrative. The progressive revela- 
tion of a body of truth, and the advancing devel- 
opment of a human agent or agency by providen- 
tial dealings, are parallel movements in the un- 
folding of the divine Plan. The effort has been 
made to recognize the place and influence of these 
two correlated movements. 

To those who have in mind the many and ex- 
tended works on Messianic Prophecy the present 
treatment of that subject will seem meagre and 
superficial. The value of this book must be 
found, therefore, in the clearness of its survey 
and in the greater vividness with which, by the 
vn 



very absence of detail, it is able to portray the 
movement of the divine Plan as it sweeps through 
the centuries. 

It is only in its method, however, that the book 
is historical. In its aim, it is missionary. If God 
has a Plan, the least man may do is to link his life 
to that Plan. If God has a Plan, the most man 
may do is to let his life move parallel with that 
Plan. The last two chapters in the book are, 
therefore, practical. V/hile the bock presents a 
continuous narrative, it is intended that the stu- 
dent will examine carefully the Scripture records 
upon which the surveys of this book are based. 
The book has therefore been prepared to serve as 
a text book for mission study along the lines of 
the mission study class movement of our day. 
The immediate use of this text book in United 
Presbyterian circles has led to the insertion, in 
the last half of Chapter Eight, of a brief section 
referring to the missionary responsibilities of this 
Church. Apart from this section, the treatment 
of the entire theme is quite general in character. 
The American Revised Version has been used 
wherever Bible quotations occur. 

The author wishes to express his indebtedness 
to Prof. Gerhardus Vos, D. D., whose class-room 



VIII 



lectures first suggested this theme to the writer; 
also to Prof. D. A. McClenahan, D. D., and Prof. 
John E. Wishart, D. D., who rendered helpful 
service in reading and criticizing certain sections 
of the manuscript. In the seventh chapter, some 
slight use was made of material previously pre- 
sented in a booklet, "Life Plans." 

In the earnest hope that these chapters may 
serve to interpret to the individual Christian and 
to the Church, the missionary purposes of our 
God, and help to raise up a generation which will 
fulfil these purposes, this book is sent forth. 



IX 



CONTENTS 

Chapteb. Page. 

I. The Unfolding of God's Plan 15 

II. The Period of Preparation 37 

III. Later Preparatory Days 67 

IV. Christ's Place in God's Plan 91 

V. World Evangelization 115 

VI. The Missionary Movement 143 

VII. The Individual and God's Plan 161 

VIII. The Church and God's Plan 189 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Prophet Isaiah Frontispiece 

Main Periods of World Redemption .... facing page 30 

44 
45 

78 
79 
89 



Period of Preparation (Before Abraham) 

Period of Preparation (After Abraham) 

Schism between Judah and Israel 

The Prophet Hosea facing 

Preparation and Realization 

The Sea of Galilee or Lake Tiberias facing 

View of Jerusalem facing . 

Average Responsibility facing 

Model Missionary Church 

The Church Dollar 



129 
181 
202 
222 



CHAPTER I 



The Unfolding of God's Plan 



"Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 

Whom we, that have not seen Thy face, 
By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 
Believing where we cannot prove; 

"Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 
Thou madest Life in man and brute; 
Thou madest Death ; and lo, Thy foot 
Is on the skull which Thou hast made. 

"Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 
Thou madest man, he knows not why, 
He thinks he was not made to die; 
And Thou hast made him : Thou art just. 

"Our little systems have their day, 

They have their day and cease to be : 

They are but broken lights of Thee, 

And Thou, O Lord, art more than they. 

"We have but faith : we cannot know ; 
For knowledge is of things we see ; 
And yet we trust it comes from Thee, 
A beam in darkness: let it grow. 

"Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
That mind and soul, according well, 
May make one music as before, 

"But vaster." 

— Alfred Tennyson. 



I 

THE UNFOLDING OF GOD'S MISSION- 
ARY PLAN 

HISTORY! What an interesting study it An interesting 
is, this long narrative of human events ! 
Take the last century and a half. All 
of our national life is to be found within 
the limits of that brief period. How much these 
fifteen decades mean to the United States alone ! 
If we go back four hundred years, we find 
America just being discovered, the Reformation 
has not been ushered in in Germany and Europe, 
and Spain is the dominant nation of Europe. 
But let us go back one thousand years. It may 
help us to realize how much history even the last 
thousand years record, if we will remember that 
one thousand years ago the Norman Conquest 
of England had not yet been accomplished, the 
Crusades had not yet been called, Moorish civili- 
zation was flourishing in Spain and the Caliph's 
fleets were dominant in the Mediterranean. 
What a world of events since that time ! 

The measure of our retrospect may be length- How 7 Far 
ened. We go back two thousand years. All that 
we call "The Christian Era" lies within this 



18 god's plan for world redemption. 

period of history, and what pages and volumes 
are required to narrate the events of simply 
these two millenniums! But why limit thought 
to the Christian era ? The life of a man may be 
threescore years and ten, but in the life of the 
race two thousand years do not reach back to 
Humanity's middle life. Go back a thousand 
years before Christ. In distant China, the Chow 
Dynasty is guiding affairs of state. In India, 
the Aryan invader has already been in India a 
thousand years. In Egypt, the New Empire 
has been established; it is called New, because 
the term Old must be reserved for an Empire 
that began eleven hundred years before. In Pal- 
estine, David is King of Israel, while Assyria is 
the most formidable nation of Western Asia. 
Of course, Greek history has not yet begun. 

Nor need we fear that we are yet in any dan- 
ger of running into the beginning of things, for, 
if we wish to go still further back, Chinese his- 
toric legends and existing monuments in Egypt 
will volunteer their services as guides through 
the labyrinths of still earlier millenniums, while 
Sargon I. of Babylonia is said to have ruled 
, , v about 4000 B. C. 
Thejeginning Here are at least some five or six (millenniums 

of Things. 

of authentic history. What a world of events! 
What a study! this history of the human race, 
this succession of generations which spell out 



UNFOLDING OF GOD'S MISSIONARY PLAN. 19 

national histories and whole civilizations! And 
what does it all mean? Is history just a record 
of a long series of accidents? Are all these 
events just happenings subject to mere Chance, 
or resultings subject to certain Law? Or is 
there some great Guiding Hand, some Ruling 
Power, restraining, guiding, shaping history, so 
that we can say, 

"Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing pur- 
pose runs" ? 

Or is the movement of Humanity just 

"Forward, backward, backward, forward, in the im- 
measurable sea, 
Swayed by vaster ebbs and flows than can be known 
to you or me"? 

Many books of history have been written. Books of His 
Some are satisfied with recording events, without tory * 
explaining their meaning. Some look at the 
great tangle of human events and say they have 
no meaning, or only some accidental meaning. 
Some have endeavored— and this is a popular 
effort in our day— to explain all movements from 
the point of view of economics. Among other 
books, we find one, different from the rest in 
many ways. It is written by a number of differ- 
ent persons, but all seem to have the same view- 
point. It is a good sized book, and deals with a 
good bit of human history. It begins with this 



20 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

original sentiment or explanation, "In the begin- 
ning God." Farther on in the book we find this 
statement, "All things have been created through 
Him and unto Him ; and He is before all things 
and in Him all things consist (i. e., hold to- 
gether)." The answer which this book gives to 
the age-long problem of the interpretation of 
history, is to be studied and unfolded in this 
volume. 
Tracing God's But it is one thing to say that through the mil- 
lenniums of history God has been "at the helm of 
nations," and it is quite another to be able to 
trace His guidance. Does the Book do that for 
us, for all of human history? No, it does not. 
Indeed it is a question whether if it did under- 
take this great task, there would be any who 
would be able to follow its explanations. Some 
day, doubtless, the mysteries of God's methods 
and purposes as moral Ruler of the Universe will 
be revealed. Then we shall understand the far 
stretching millenniums of Chinese history, the 
civilizations of Assyria and Egypt, the rise and 
fall of kingdoms in Asia and Europe, the un- 
known millenniums of Africa's waiting. These 
all, together with all else that now baffles human 
explanation, will be spread like an open scroll 
before the wondering gaze of immortal man, and 
he may then read "the purpose of Him who 
worketh all things after the counsel of His will" 



UNFOLDING OF GOD'S MISSIONARY PLAN. 21 

and it will be "to the praise of His glory." For 
that full explanation of the mystery of human 
history we must wait until the day of the con- 
summation of the ages, when 

. . . "The sun grows cold 

And the stars are old 

And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold." 

What then does the Book do for us ? Does it 
simply assert that God is the God of history and 
let it go at that? That would be suggestive but 
it would be poor anchorage for faith and hope. 
The Book does more than that. 

Not long ago, the civilized world was filled Haiiey's 

. . & , . , Comet. 

with curiosity and interest over the announce- 
ment of the expected appearance of that heavenly 
visitor which is seen but once in seventy-five 
years, Haiiey's Comet. The date of its appear- 
ance was fixed for a certain time, and at the time 
announced or close upon it the comet appeared. 
Had the astronomer followed it by sight in all its 
wanderings into space that he should have been 
able to announce so definitely its return? Not 
at all. He simply had the few observations of the 
former appearance of the comet. Knowing its 
course within a given period, he knew that ac- 
cording to the faithfulness of the laws established 
by a faithful God, this wanderer in the heavens 
would fulfil an appointed course and return at 



22 



GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



What the Book 
Does. 



Sin Creates 
Need. 



an appointed time. It was not necessary to actu- 
ally see the comet throughout its whole course; 
it was only necessary to see it during part of its 
course. 

So with the Book. It lifts the veil, it reveals 
God in the history of the world at a few limited 
points in the course of human history. It reveals 
God continuously in the life of a single nation 
throughout several centuries. Then come a few 
generalizations concerning God and His plan, 
some prophecies, and the Book closes. We may 
read other histories, the records of other nations 
and try for ourselves to see God in these his- 
tories. We may partially succeed ; we may think 
we see Him ; we may imagine we understand His 
workings. But whether we succeed or fail, 
whether we understand or cannot comprehend 
it at all, the fact remains: God is there. The 
Book tells us so. And furthermore, the Book 
reveals God and His Plan within the limits 
already described. This revelation of God's 
Plan which we find in the Book is to be the object 
of our study. 

But back of God's Plan is God's Purpose. And 
back of God's Purpose is God. And God is Love. 
What will Love purpose and plan and do? 
Whatever is necessary. And what is necessary? 
Here we face the great fact with which, after 
Creation, the Book begins. It is the fact of Sin. 



UNFOLDING OF GOD S MISSIONARY PLAN. 23 

The story of how Sin entered is told in the third 
chapter of Genesis. The fact of Sin is central to 
human history. We must lay hold of that fact 
firmly. If man had not sinned, God might have 
manifested His love in other ways, but there 
would surely have been no need for the Old Tes- 
tament sacrifices nor for the New Testament 
Sacrifice. The need of man determined the 
form that love must take. Man's need was for 
deliverance from sin. So Love took up the 
task of delivering man from sin. The Purpose of 
God became a Redemptive Purpose, a Missionary 
Purpose. And the Plan became a Redemptive 
Plan, a Missionary Plan. That Purpose and that 
Plan run through the ages. We must trace them 
as far as we may. 

Practical Value of Knowing God's Plan 

It is well to ask here, What is the practical TJ} e Use of u 
value of knowing God's Plan ? It is not going to 
be altogether easy to study the character, the 
methods, the underlying principles and the out- 
workings of God's Plan as it sweeps through the 
centuries. We experience difficulty in following 
the thought of men as they unfold to us their 
plans ; how then can we expect to follow and ap- 
prehend the thought of God without application 
and the fullest concentration of the powers of 



24 



GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



Knowing 
Better. 



God 



Understanding 
History. 



both mind and spirit? If such effort is required, 
what is to be the practical value of this study? 
i. First of all, there will come a clearness of 
vision in our apprehension of truth. 

(a) To understand what God is doing, to 
study the methods which He uses and the prin- 
ciples which He follows, is to come to know God 
better. God's character is best revealed in the 
great redemptive work in which He is engaged. 
Imagine the son of some great statesman, like 
Gladstone, only knowing his father in the fel- 
lowships of the home and unaware of the fact 
that his father had broader interests than in min- 
istering to that son within that home. The son 
would not be truly acquainted with his father. 
Only by going out into the great world of his 
father's public and national and world-wide in- 
terests, would the son know his father and dis- 
cover his greatness of purpose, his nobility of 
character, his gifts and powers. To know God 
we must have fellowship with Him in His great 
Work. 

(b) To study God's Plan is to understand bet- 
ter human history. It is to find "the key, the 
master-key to history." He who has caught a 
clear vision of God's Plan, does not "regard his- 
tory as following the course of the sun, going 
from East to West. Nor, like Herder, does he 
count history to be the manifestation of the pow- 



UNFOLDING OF GOD S MISSIONARY PLAN. 2$ 

ers of nature in moral progress. Nor is he like 
Cotmte, who finds the law of history in the evolu- 
tion of the intellect." To him a nobler and more 
satisfying explanation is at hand. When others 
utter their despairing cry, 

"Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the 

throne," 

he can say with quiet confidence, 

"Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim 
unknown 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above 
His own." 

(c) To study God's Plan is to get a better un- Sf e de ^e dins 
derstanding of the Bible itself. It is impossible 

to understand the Word of God without appre- 
hending the Plan of God. We study the Book to 
discover the Plan, but having discovered the 
Plan we may go back and read the Book once 
again and new meaning and new glory will flash 
from its pages. 

(d) To know God's Plan is to better under- 
stand the Church of Christ. The Church has an 
important place in that Plan. Apart from it, the 
Church has no significance or meaning, no raison 
d'etre. 

2. In the second place, the great value of JJ*£ t0 0ur 
studying God's Redemptive Plan will be to our 



26 god's plan for world redemption. 

own lives. Every willing life may have a place 
in that plan. Is there any more inspiring thought 
than this, that God should link a human life to 
His majestic power and purposes? Is there any 
more promising investment of life than in the 
work which God Himself is forwarding? Is 
there any safer principle to follow in a life de- 
cision, than to lay the life parallel with the will 
and plan of God ? Here is a study of most prac- 
tical value and its issues are guidance, peace, 
power and glory. 
Helping God. 3. Finally, to study God's Redemptive Plan 
is to make it possible for us to help God in hast- 
ening the consummation of His Plan. What a 
wonderful honor this, to be men on whom God 
can rely, to stand steady and true to His pur- 
poses and plans when others draw back in ignor- 
ance or in fear ! By the faithfulness of men and 
women who know His plans, God has again and 
again either brought about great forward move- 
ments or saved the world from worse evils than 
did occur. So Moses 1 in Egypt and again at the 
Red Sea; a so Caleb at Kadesh-Barnea 8 and 
Gideon with his hundred men ; * so Deborah, the 
prophetess, 8 and David, the shepherd boy. 8 



1 Ex. 6: 9. * Judges 7: 19-21. 

2 Ex. 14: 13. 8 Judges 4: 4-7. 

8 Num. 13 : 30. • 1 Sam. 17 : 32-37. 



UNFOLDING OF GOD S MISSIONARY PLAN. 2J 

"The ages are but baubles hung upon 
The thread of some strong lives — and one slight wrist 
May lift a century above the dust." 

Important Observations 

In endeavoring to discover and understand 
God's Plan, several important points need to be 
observed : 

i. A clear distinction must be drawn between An important 
God's Plan and man's apprehension of that Plan. Distinction - 
To confuse these two things would be to measure 
God by man's conception of Him. Indeed, Paul 
frankly recognizes that the wonderful Plan of 
God was a mystery to the Old Testament saints. 
The Plan existed, the purpose was there, but 
men could not apprehend it. So Paul describes it 
as a part of his glorious commission "to make all 
men see what is the dispensation of the mystery 
which for ages hath been hid in God." T Of his 
own advantage of knowledge, he writes very em- 
phatically: "Ye can perceive my understanding 
in the mystery of Christ ; which in other genera- 
tions was not made known unto the sons of men, 
as it hath now been revealed unto his holy apos- 
tles and prophets in the Spirit." 8 A further 
distinction follows from that just stated. 

2. It is necessary to distinguish between Another dis- 

, ° tinction. 

God s Plan and man s obedience to that Plan. 

T Eph. 3 : ©. « Eph. 3 : 4-6. 



28 god's plan for world redemption. 

God's Plan for World Redemption is perfect. 
But it has no more been realized and fulfilled 
by man than has God's law of holiness. The 
Ten Commandments were broken, are being 
broken. So, too, the Plan for World Redemp- 
tion has been held back from execution, post- 
poned in its fulfilment, by man's refusals to its 
call and disobedience to its commissions. The 
distinction then is an important one. There are 
many pages of human history which some men 
have tried to justify as good, when they ought 
to be condemned as evil. There are periods, — 
years, decades and even centuries, — in which 
men disobeyed God, refused to do His will and 
contravened His gracious purposes. Where 
there is such disobedience, it is to be condemned, 
as in the Scripture, 9 and not justified. Because 
of this distinction between God's own Plan and 
man's disobedience or disloyalty to it, there fol- 
lows another consideration. 
The Plan in ? The Plan must be sought for in the reve- 

the Book. ° . & # 

lation of Scripture and not in human history. 
The Plan is to be found in the Book. God's Will 
is revealed in His Word. We learn there what 
God wishes to accomplish and what He wishes 
to have accomplished. To go to human history 
trying to discover from human events alone 
what is God's Plan, is as foolish as to go to a 

»Ps. 106; Luke 19: 41; Acts 7: 51-53; Heb. 4 : 6, 7. 



UNFOLDING OF GOD S MISSIONARY PLAN. 29 

human life trying to discover from it God's per- 
fect law of holiness. In history, as in the indi- 
vidual human life, there are disobedience and 
failure and woful shortcomings. Not from the 
wanderings of the Prodigal Son in "the far coun- 
try" do we get the clearest revelation of what 
were the wish and will of the father for his boy, 
but in the revelation which the father himself 
gives of his character and will. Not from the 
base failure of Israel's faith at Kadesh-Barnea, 
do we discover the highest thought of Jehovah 
for His people, but in the courageous words of 
Caleb who lived near to God. When we take up 
a copy of some Universal History, we do not 
hold in our hand an illustrated edition of the 
highest thought of God for the human race. In 
all human history there is a marring of the 
beauty of God's highest thought and plan through 
human disobedience. God is there still, restrain- 
ing, pleading, striving, over-ruling, but the vision 
of the perfect Plan is to be found, not in the 
record of human events, but in the Inspired 
Word, revealing in a direct and unsullied fashion 
the character, the will and the plan of God. To 
the Book, then, must we go to discover the Plan. 

4. In the unfolding of God's great Plan for |£ a er ® s ara 
world redemption, there will be stages. This is 
to be expected. It is so in every great work. 
In building a house, the ground must be cleared 



30 god's plan for world redemption. 

away, then the trenches are dug for the founda- 
tions, then the foundations are laid, then the 
walls are built, finally the roof is added. Meth- 
ods of work will differ according to the stage 
with which we are dealing, but the purpose is 
one and the plan is one. 
Three Great In God's great Plan for the redemption of hu- 

Perioda. ° 

manity, three distinct stages or periods have been 
pointed out : 10 

The Period of Preparation 
The Period of Realisation 
The Period of Application 

preparation. The Period of Preparation extends from the 

Fall of Man to the Birth of Christ. This is the 
period in which the world was being prepared 
for the coming of Him Who should, by His own 
person and work, lay the foundation for the sal- 
vation of man. The entire Old Testament story 
deals with this period. As has been explained 
already, the manner of God's dealings with all 
races is not set forth in detail in the Old Testa- 
ment, but only His dealings with Israel. We 
may well believe, however, that the whole world 
was being prepared for the coming of the World 
Saviour. 

Realization. T he p er i d of Realization extends from the 

Birth of Christ to the Day of Pentecost. This 

10 Rev. Gerhardus Vos, D. D. 



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UNFOLDING OF GOD'S MISSIONARY PLAN. 3 1 

is the period in which the salvation was realized, 
the life lived, the sacrifice consummated and the 
Spirit given, upon which rests the whole scheme 
of redemption. To this period relate the Gospel 
narratives and the first chapters of Acts. 

The Period of Application extends from the Application. 
Day of Pentecost to the present time. We know 
not how much longer this period will extend. 
The obedience of the Church will be a determin- 
ing factor here. This is the period in which the 
Salvation, prepared for in the first period, re- 
alized in the second, is carried to all the world 
and applied to human life and its needs. This is 
the period in which we live, and it possesses, 
therefore, a peculiar interest to us. The New 
Testament, from the early chapters of the Acts 
through the Epistle of Jude, relates chiefly to the 
activities of this period. 

The question forces itself upon us, Are there 
not other periods and stages in the unfolding of 
God's great Plan ? Undoubtedly there are, there 
must be. We may include them all under the 
general heading, God's Great Next. What that 
period will involve, whether it breaks up into 
subordinate periods, what its character and glory 
will be, are matters hinted at chiefly in the Book 
of Revelation, and also in many other isolated 
prophecies. 



32 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

por e tant der Im " 5* ^ is important to observe that in the un- 
folding of God's great Plan, not only are the 
several stages of great importance, but the order 
of these stages is extremely important too. This 
is so in all spheres of life and work. The farmer 
must not only plough and sow and reap, but he 
must do these things in the right order. The 
house builder cannot build his walls until the 
foundations are laid. In individual salvation, 
sanctification is not possible until after justifica- 
tion and regeneration. So with God's great Plan 
of world redemption, the order of the several 
periods is important, for one period cannot be 
ushered in and will not be ushered in until the 
preceding period has been completed. In think- 
ing of these periods and of their completion, we 
must not think of them so much in terms of Time 
as in terms of certain conditions to be fulfilled. 
The Scriptures frequently intimate that with God 
Time has no existence. "One day is with the 
Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years 
as one day." 1X Philosophy teaches the same 
truth. God's decrees and plans are to be thought 
of, then, not so much as resting on blocks of 
Time, — so many centuries which we must wait 
to have elapse, — as on the fulfilment of certain 
conditions. When these conditions are fulfilled, 
He Who waiteth to "see of the travail of His 



11 II Peter 3:8; Cf. Heb. 4: 6-8. 



UNFOLDING OF GOD S MISSIONARY PLAN. 33 

soul" will delay not one moment in ushering in 
His next dispensation. Until these conditions 
are fulfilled, He will wait ; not without continuing 
to work for the desired end, but yet He will wait. 
It is this truth that gives a place to human faith- 
fulness and earnestness and obedience in the un- 
folding of God's great Plan. 1 ' 

6. To understand God's Plan of human re- 
demption and to appreciate the unfolding of the 
Plan, it is necessary to recognize certain ele- 
ments in the problem which God undertook to 
solve. 

(a) First of all, there was Sin. That was a The Problem 
supreme element in the problem. Its nature, 

its character, its extent, the damage it wrought, — 
all these facts determined the need for a certain 
kind of redemption. It is not necessary to en- 
large here upon the character of sin, for its real 
nature will be revealed as God's Plan for over- 
coming sin is unfolded in these studies. Two 
needs, growing out of Sin, became such impor- 
tant elements in the problem of human redemp- 
tion that they call for special mention. 

(b) There was the need for a Revelation of 
Truth. Man, even in his original state, undoubt- 
edly needed to advance in his knowledge of God. 
But with the Fall, so perverted did his nature be- 
come that the need for a divine revelation became 



13 I PeUr 3 : 8-13. 
3 



34 



GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



The Problem 
of Free Will. 



Each Life 
Alone. 



doubly great, and the problem of imparting to 
him knowledge became tenfold more difficult. 
Yet a revelation of God and of Truth was indis- 
pensable, if man was to be saved. 

(c) There was also the need for a work of 
Atonement for Sin. Something needed to be 
done to set right all that had gone wrong 
through man's sin. How much that is, the hu- 
man mind cannot fully apprehend. But its full 
measure is found in Christ's work and sacrifice. 
What needed to be done, was done by Him. 

(d) Another element in the problem of saving 
man was man's free will. At no point does God's 
Plan do violence to man's free will. And this 
element of the problem is always found to be one 
of supreme difficulty. Where God's Plan works 
alone through a perfect agency or agent, how 
quickly that Plan moves. The Period of Reali- 
zation is one in which Christ works alone, and 
how short this period is — one brief life-time of 
thirty-three years ! In the Period of Preparation 
God works with man for the forwarding of the 
Plan. How slow seem the movements of that 
period. In the Period of Application, God again 
works with man. How slow is His Agency, the 
Church, to do His will. 

(e) Another element in the problem was to 
deal, through all the ages, with each life so that 
each life may have a fair chance. Just how this 



UNFOLDING OF GOD S MISSIONARY PLAN. 35 

is accomplished we do not always understand, 
but the Scriptures teach that in His dealings with 
whole races and nations and in His far-off un- 
folding movements, God deals justly, fairly and 
graciously also with every individual soul. 13 It 
cannot then be said of God, as it has been said of 
Nature, 

"So careful of the type, she seems 
So careless of the single life." 

(f) Another element in the problem was the social and Na- 

v y . - • tional Life. 

reverse of the foregoing, to deal with the social, 
communal or national life, while dealing also with 
individual life. The individual cannot realize his 
fullest development alone. He draws his view- 
point, his assumption, his underlying principles 
of life from the society of which he is a part. If 
he cut himself off from his fellows, his develop- 
ment becomes narrow and unbalanced. God's 
Plan involved saving communities and nations as 
well as individuals, and this constituted a difficult 
element in the problem of world redemption, but 
one which must be recognized if we would under- 
stand the oftentimes slow unfolding of that Plan. 
Could God solve these problems? How the 
angels themselves must have looked with aston- 
ishment and despair at the awful tragedy of Sin 



13 Rom. 1: 18-20; Ps. 145: 8, 9; Isa. 57: 15; Acts 10: 
34, 35. 



36 god's plan for world redemption. 

-overwhelming God's noblest creation, Humanity ! 
With what holy wonder at the wisdom and love 
of God, they must follow God's majestic work of 
redemption! It is ours also to look upon this 
divine Plan for World Redemption. 



CHAPTER II 



The Period of Preparation 



"O Thou to Whom a thousand years 
Are but a day, how short appears 
The measure of a century's span, 
In carrying out Thy sovereign plan! 

"A plan eternal in its scope, 
Immortal in its radiant hope, 
Dimly to Abram first revealed, 
Alone in old Chaldea's field. 

"The glorious theme the prophets taught, 
Their souls aflame with God's great thought, 
Through long, slow centuries rolling by 
With leisure of eternity." 

— "American Board Centennial Hymn," 
by Frances /. Dyer. 

"The key to understanding all God's dark dealings 
through the ages is simply a universal love going out in 
redemptive purpose." — W. O. Carver. 



II 

THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION 



T 



HE Bible narrative begins with the story a Bright Be- 
of Creation. It is a story which sheds a 



bright and saving light down all the 
dark ages which form a part of human 
history, for the Bible story of Creation reads, 
"God created man in His own image." There 
stands that original fact of human life, undeni- 
able, unchangeable, full of hope. To be sure the 
story of the Fall follows hard upon the story of 
Creation, but the fact remains, that man was cre- 
ated by God in the image of God. There is hope 
in that thought, there is comfort. Put alongside 
of this Bible narrative the words of one who 
tried to solve the riddle of life without God, and 
the radiant light of the Bible narrative will ap- 
pear more clearly. "I know of no study," wrote 
Professor Huxley, "which is so unutterably sad- 
dening as that of the evolution of humanity as set 
forth in the annals of history. Out of the dark- 
ness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the 
marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He 
is a brute, only more intelligent than the other 
brutes; a blind prey to impulses which as often 

39 



40 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

as not lead him to destruction ; a victim to endless 
illusions which make his mental existence a ter- 
ror, and fill his physical life with barren toil and 
battle." 

image ds ^ * s a significant fact that in the very Book in 

which evil is painted in its blackest colors and sin 
receives its greatest condemnation, the origin of 
the human race is set forth in words so radiant 
with hope, "And God said, Let us make man in 

our image, after our likeness And 

God created man in His own image, in the image 
of God created He him." 

If there is comfort in this fact of creation for 
any, the comfort belongs to all. For it was not a 
certain select race that God created in His own 
image. It was man, the common stock from 
which all of humanity springs. There is a uni- 
versal relationship established here by creation 
between man and God, and that relationship is the 
inheritance and assurance of all mankind. 

The Fan. Then comes the story of the Fall. It is a sim- 

ple story of disobedience, of wilful disobedience. 
"There are two places in the Bible/' says Dr. 
Henry Van Dyke, "where the entrance of evil 
and the fall of man are described — and they both 
teach the same lesson. Christ's parable of the 
Prodigal Son x is just as true, just as significant, 
as the story of Adam's lost Paradise. In both 

1 Luke 15 : 11. 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 41 

stories the entrance of the evil is through self- 
will — blind, perverse, ruinous, but free, and there- 
fore responsible. In both stories the nature of 
the evil is rebellion, self-injury, separation from 
God." 

The results of the Fall are summed up in the 
Bible narrative in the words, "Therefore Jehovah 
God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to 
till the ground whence he was taken."' And 
man went out from the presence of God. So sin 
spelled separation from God, and shame, and 
guilt, and fear, and punishment, and pain, and a 
disordered nature. And it meant this for all the 
race. Would man ever get back into the presence 
of God? It seemed hopeless, impossible. 

Just then God launched His Plan for World The Plan 

J Launched. 

Redemption. The first announcement of it was 
not made to man, although made in his presence. 
It was made to that Power and Personification of 
Evil which seemed at that moment ready to glory 
in the thwarting of God's purposes. "And Jeho- 
vah said unto the serpent, I will put enmity be- 
tween thee and the woman, and between thy seed 
and her seed : he shall bruise thy head, and thou 
shalt bruise his heel." 3 Thus was heralded the 
coming, far down the centuries, of One Who, 
"bruised for our transgressions," became the 
Emancipator of humanity from sin. 

»Gen. 3: 9-24. 
3 Gen. 3: 15. 



42 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

For the further study of God's dealings with 
man and the unfolding of His Redemptive Plan, 
it will be found convenient to divide the historical 
narrative of the Scriptures into periods. 

I. The Period Before Abraham 

The Race as a During this period, God's method is portrayed 
as dealing with the race as a whole. It is not im- 
plied that at any time God's love was narrower 
than the whole race/ but, as will be seen, there 
was in later periods a selection, that the purposes 
of God might be worked out through the few for 
the benefit of the many. We are so familiar with 
this later method that it may be necessary to em- 
phasize the apparently universal method of the 
first period. 

"The earlier revelations of God," says Fair- 
bairn, "made no difference between one person 
and another, or even between one stem and an- 
other. They spoke the same language and held 
out the same invitations to all." It is interesting 
to find that the comparative study of religions 
helps to corroborate the view that all of humanity 
shared in certain primal revelations. Where races 
have been cut off from the later streams of divine 
revelation, study shows that the early periods of 



* Amos. 9 : 7. 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 43 

these races were the best and that the later peri- 
ods were marked by degeneration. 5 

Whatever divine revelations or providential 
dealings are recorded of this first period, they are 
all represented then as extending to the whole 
race without discrimination, unless it be that dis- 
crimination was the result of individual respon- 
siveness. 8 Humanity is represented as one in 
creation, in the fall, in the knowledge of sacrificial 
worship, 7 in the example set for it by God for the 
observance of a weekly rest day, 8 in its ability to 
enjoy fellowship with God, 9 in the judgment of 
God upon it because of sin, 10 in the covenant 
made after the Flood. 11 None of these revela- 
tions or experiences are set forth as coming to 
any one man or family because of a limitation of 
the divine operations of grace to a certain race or 
tribe or family. How broad is the gracious cove- 
nant with Noah. "And God said unto Noah, 
This is the token of the covenant which I have 
established between me and all flesh that is upon 
the earth." 

But, as Fairbairn points out, "there was a a Downward 

Tendency. 

downward tendency in the process. The elect 

5 Warneck's "The Living Christ and Dying Heathenism," 
page 10. 

6 There are some who make the particularizing of God's 
Plan to begin with Seth instead of with Abraham. 

T Gen. 4: 3-7; 8: 20. 1( > Gen. 7: 23. 

8 Gen. 2: 2, 3. n Gen. 9: 17. 

*Gen. 4: 26; 5: 24. 



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<aco <o 



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4 6 



GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



One Man 
Chosen. 



The Semitic 
Race. 



seed did not grow as time advanced, but propor- 
tionately decreased; the cause and party that 
flourished was the one opposed to God's. And 
the same result was beginning to take place after 
the flood, as is evident from other notices of the 
early appearance of corruption. The tendency in 
this direction was too strong to be effectually met 
by such general revelations and overtures of 
mercy. The plan was too vague and indetermin- 
ate. A more specific line of operations was 
needed — from the particular to the general; so 
that a certain amount of good, within a definite 
range, might in the first instance be secured ; and 
that from this, as a fixed position, other advant- 
ages might be gained and more extensive results 
achieved." So there is unfolded a new method. 

II. Patriarchal Period 

One individual man is to be selected as a chan- 
nel for divine revelation, as a subject of special 
providential dealings, so that he and his descen- 
dants may make possible God's unfolding of His 
Plan for world redemption. Where will the man 
be found ? Who will he be ? 

God's elections are always in harmony with a 
divine fitness which His wisdom has prepared 
and therefore uses. We go to distant Babylonia. 
Here dwelt a Semitic race. "Comparative psy- 
chology plainly teaches this much, namely that 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 47 

the Shemites were more adapted by nature than 
other peoples — their equals or superiors in cul- 
ture — to see the absolute in the finite, the work- 
ing of God in nature, His action in history, and to 
hear His words in the inner spiritual life of indi- 
viduals/' God selected a Shemite, who lived not 
far from where the Tigris and the Euphrates flow 
together, in a city called Ur of the Chaldees. 
This was about 2000 B. C. In the course of 
time, the family moved to Haran to live. The 
reasons for the change are not given, but it was 
a great journey for those days, — some five hun- 
dred miles north-west. That the family was re- 
ligious, we know. That they were idolators, we 
also know. 1 * Could a pure religion be unfolded 
in such an atmosphere? Manifestly not. "Now 
Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy 
country, and from thy kindred, and from thy 
father's house unto the land that I will show 
thee." 

It was some four hundred miles to the south- £h e Divine 

Call. 

west to Canaan. Hostile peoples lived there. 
Abraham's company, all told, would scarcely 
command respect as a caravan. They had not 
yet grown to the proportions of a tribe. Why 
exchange the certainties of Haran for the uncer- 
tainties of an unnamed land? It was a critical 
moment, but we read, "So Abram went, as Jeho- 

* Josh. 24: 2. 



reer. 



48 god's PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

vah had spoken unto him." And upon the hinges 
of this man's life, God swung a movement for 
world redemption. The Plan for world redemp- 
tion was well under way. 
A^Greftt ca- The story of Abraham's life is given in some 
thirteen chapters. 13 'The great outstanding 
events of his career were his calL his magnani- 
mous treatment of Lot, his intercession for 
Sodom, his offering of Isaac, and his purchase of 
a burial place from the sons of Heth. ,, There 
were limitations and weaknesses in his charac- 
ter. Twice he dissimulated concerning Sarah his 
wife, to Pharaoh 14 and to Abimelech; 13 and God 
used these heathen rulers to rebuke Abraham for 
his disloyalty to truth. It is not his limitations, 
however, but his virtues, that impress us most. 
He was the great Pioneer of Faith. This quality 
which characterizes above all else our Christian 
religion of to-day, 16 this quality which runs like 
a golden thread through the narrative of God's 
Plan for world redemption 17 and which leads 
men unerringly into the very presence of God, 
this quality, faith, Abraham had in a degree that 
has inspired the ages. He gave a first splendid 
exhibition of it when he left home and country. 
He showed it in his patient waiting for God to 
give him a land of Canaan which had been prom- 

13 Gen. 12: 1-25: 10. 16 Rom. 5: 1. 

"Gen. 12: 10-20. 1T Heb. 11. 

15 Gen. 20: 1-18. 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 49 

ised to him. He displayed this same quality 
awaiting a miraculous fulfilment of the promise 
that to him a son should be born, though he was 
past a hundred years of age and Sarah was past 
ninety. He again displayed this quality in a su- 
preme test, when bidden to offer up his son 
Isaac. 

To save him from an evil environment God led The Providence 

of God. 

him out of Ur to Haran, and out of Haran to Ca- 
naan, and out of Canaan to Egypt, and out of 
Egypt back to Canaan. These providential mov- 
ings broadened his vision and his sympathies, but 
they also kept his life and the life of his family 
isolated. Strangeness prevented too great inti- 
macy or intercourse with the surrounding peo- 
ples. Again and again did God reveal himself to 
Abraham, making known to him His divine char- 
acter and methods. 

It is well worth while to notice, at the close of The Purpose of 
Abraham's life, along how many different lines 
progress had been made in the unfolding of God's 
Plan: 

(a) All the rich content of early revelation was 
to be safeguarded for all the future by the selec- 
tion of this religious Shemite. It is really won- 
derful how much of God must have been known 
even before God's special dealings with Abraham 
added to this knowledge. 

(b) A man had been discovered who would 



50 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

serve as the founder of a race in whose life God's 
will imight have a determining influence. Abra- 
ham's readiness to subject his life plans to the 
will of God, established a standard of obedience 
to the divine will which powerfully influenced all 
his posterity in their tribal and national develop- 
ment. 

(c) A human channel had been found for the 
continuous and progressive revelation of truth. 
To Abraham's posterity God would be able to 
make advancing revelations of Himself without 
having, as it were, to begin over again with each 
generation. 

(d) A human agency had been found whose 
standards of morality, even though often imper- 
fectly realized, would serve as a witness to God's 
holiness, and save a rapidly deteriorating world 
from utter moral ruin and decay. 

(e) A deep, abiding impression of the reality 
of God had been made upon at least one family 
among men. Abraham believed that God was, 
and that He was a rewarder of them that dili- 
gently seek Him. The supreme fact of his life 
was God. 

The Mission- (f) Good progress had been made in revealing 

ary End. , v J f . r _ , , , & 

the great missionary purpose of God and the 
world-wide reach of His Plan. Again and again 
the changes are rung upon the all-inclusive scope 
of the covenant of blessing, "In thee shall all the 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 51 

families of the earth be blessed." It was the 
missionary heart of Abraham that led him to 
plead even for so dissolute and abandoned a race 
as that of Sodom. He had learned from his God. 

Isaac. The life of Isaac was uneventful. He, 
too, had revelations from God. 18 He, too, was 
obedient to those revelations. But on the whole 
little is recorded. Of Isaac's two sons, Jacob is 
the one through whom God chose to unfold His 
Plan. 

Jacob. The Bible narrative dwells at length Jacob, 
upon the events of his life. There is not space 
here to refer to these events individually. An ac- 
quaintance with them must be assumed. The aim 
here is only to emphasize those most vitally re- 
lated to the unfolding of the divine Plan. 

God's Plan called for worthy characters and 
lives to whom His truth might be revealed and by 
whom it might also be realized. Now Jacob was 
a strange combination of worthy and unworthy 
traits. "He was coarse, selfish and passionate, 
having business capacity, but also possessed of a 
religious nature which was capable of great de- 
velopment. He coveted the best gifts. He had 
fixed religious principles. He was steady in his 
habits. The struggle that went on within him 
was a long and fierce one ; but grace conquered, 
and Jacob, 'the Overreacher/ became Israel, 'the 

"Gen. 26: 2-6. 



52 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

Prince with God'." If the purposes of God are 
to swing upon the hinges of any life, that life 
must be purified. God cleansed Jacob's life, and 
he stands before us, "a miracle of grace." 
Revelation Ad- Meanwhile, divine revelation was advancing. 

vancing. . 

The sense of the reality of God was deepening. 
At Bethel, Jacob realized God's presence. 19 At 
Peniel, he felt God's grip upon his life. 20 At 
Bethel again, he heard God's voice. 11 The great 
lesson of prevailing intercession is taught at 
Peniel. The sacred obligation of the tithe, recog- 
nizing God's sovereignty in human wealth, re- 
ceives a renewed emphasis in Jacob's sacred cove- 
nant.* 2 How vital are these lessons in the unfold- 
ing of the divine Plan ! And, finally, the universal 
scope of God's beneficent purposes is emphasized 
afresh, and, in the vision at Bethel, Jacob hears 
the covenant renewed, "In thee and in thy seed 
shall all the families of the earth be blessed." 

III. Life in Egypt 

Down to During the latter years of Jacob's life, his fam- 

ily increased in numbers not only by the marriage 
of his children and grandchildren, but by the 
family's increase in wealth, which meant the ad- 
dition of quite a community of servants and at- 
tendants who attached themselves to the family 

19 Gen. 28: 10-22. *■ Gen. 35: 9-15. 

20 Gen. 32: 24-30. » Gen. 28: 22. 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 53 

for life. The time had come for a great turning 
movement in God's providential dealings with 
Abraham's posterity. Jacob's family is to be 
lifted out of Canaan and carried down to Egypt, 
where the foundations of a national life are to be 
laid. A tribe, and not merely a family, is the hu- 
man agency with which God now deals. We 
have to do with the Israelites and not merely with 
Jacob. The problem becomes more complicated, 
but the results are to be more glorious, for the 
wisdom and power of God are to be revealed 
both on a larger scale and in more intricate ways 
than when a single individual or a single family 
were the objects of His guidance and care. 

The steps by which this great change of en- £ f h ^ d ethods 
vironment was effected, are narrated in the last 
fourteen chapters of Genesis and constitute an 
almost unparalleled illustration of the inscrutable 
wisdom of God in His providential dealings, 
whereby each individual life is carried forward 
by a special guidance suited to its own needs, 
while, at the same time, the larger purposes of 
God for whole communities and nations are also 
accomplished. 

The purposes of God in leading Israel into 
Egypt may be summarized as follows : 

(a) There was evident need to get away from j™* 7 from 
the degrading moral atmosphere of Canaan. 
Israel was not yet strong enough to conquer the 



54 god's plan for world redemption. 

land and cleanse it by conquest. To live along- 
side of such pits of iniquity as Sodom was de- 
moralizing. Egyptian life was not a model of 
morality but it was an improvement upon Ca- 
naan, and in any case, a change would make evil 
influences less insidious. 

(b) At least the beginnings of national life 
were to be developed, and the greatest civilization 
of those early days might well make its contribu- 
tion to Israel's thought and national conceptions. 

(c) If this overgrown family, this undeveloped 
tribe, Israel, was to pass naturally and easily 
through the several stages of its adolescent na- 
tional life, there was need for placing it under 
the protection of a well established empire, where 
it might be set free from the constant warfares 
and conflicts of such petty nations as existed in 
Canaan. 

coincidence™ 6 ^ remarkable combination of providences 
brought Israel to Egypt. A famine in Canaan 
brought the chief men of Israel to Egypt in search 
for food. A dynasty of Shepherd Kings, who 
by ancestry and occupation would be favorable to 
these descendants of Abraham, claimed the 
throne of Egypt. These two providences united 
in bringing about the settlement of Israel in the 
Nile Valley. 

The sojourn in Egypt lasted some four cen- 
turies. During the early part of this sojourn, the 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 



DO 



Israelites enjoyed every favor and advantage. 
During the latter part they were grievously op- 
pressed. 

The sojourn in Egypt served its providential ]^she<f Ccom ~ 
purpose. In the safety and security of life in 
Egypt, the family of Jacob multiplied most rap- 
idly. Under no other circumstances is it conceiv- 
able that there should have been such an increase 
in numbers. The Israelites also developed a na- 
tional organization of a clearly defined sort. 
There were distinct tribes; twelve of these. 
Within the tribe, there were princes by birth. 
(Ex. 16: 2.2). Also elders (Ex. 4: 29). Also 
priests (Ex. 19: 22). Also civil officers imposed 
by Pharaoh (Ex. 5:6). So effective was this 
organization that Moses was able to quickly com- 
municate with all Israel by making use of it (Ex. 
4: 29; 12: 21). 

But the sojourn in Egypt was not without its Penis in 
perils. In the midst of a materially-minded peo- 
ple, would Israel preserve its spiritual life? 
Under the shadow of a great world empire would 
Israel preserve the thought of a sovereign God? 
Enjoying the material prosperity of life in the 
Nile Delta, would Israel be mindful of the Ca- 
naan inheritance? Living alongside of a people 
only moderately moral, would Israel hold to the 
highest standards of righteousness? Living in 
the midst of a people whose religion was ex- 



56 god's plan for world redemption. 

tremely ceremonial and quite idolatrous, would 
Israel hold to a religion of reality and worship 
none other than Jehovah God, the Spirit ? * 
God's Answer. These were serious questions. How could 
they be answered? In the providence of God, 
they were answered by a change of dynasty 
which brought into power "a new king over 
Egypt, who knew not Joseph/' Oppression fol- 
lowed, cruel, deliberate, purposeful, aiming at 
nothing short of the complete enslavement and 
possibly the extinction of the Israelites. Here 
was punishment for Israel's unfaithfulness to 
God, but here also was the removal of all danger 
from amalgamation. To be a Hebrew was to be 
branded, and the Egyptians would have naught to 
do with such, while those of this oppressed race 
were drawn closer together by the very sorrows 
of their oppression. How necessary this oppres- 
sion was for the accomplishment of the divine 
purposes may be realized, when we remember 
that, even so, it was with difficulty that Israel 
was made willing to go forth from the Land of 
Bondage. 24 

Then follows that remarkable series of super- 
natural events which God wrought for the re- 
demption of Israel from the power of Egypt. It 
is a story full of interest Nowhere in history is 
there a succession of scenes of such dramatic 

23 Joshua 24: 14. 24 Ex. 14: 11-12; 16: 3. 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 57 

power as these portrayed in the first fifteen chap- 
ters of the Book of Exodus. They should be read 
anew, as the significance of these events, follow- 
ing the sojourn in Egypt, are now noted : 

(a) A nation aw r akes to its national and relig- ^iou S Tels Con ~ 
ious unity. Its families had had common experi- 
ence of suffering and one common deliverance 

from oppression. Israel has one God, one wor- 
ship. Israel is one. 

(b) The nation recognizes that it stands in a 
peculiar relationship to God. God has a distinct 
interest in their national life and theirs is a cove- 
nant relationship with God. 

(c) God is a God of supreme power. "Jeho- 
vah is a man of war." "He hath triumphed glo- 
riously." Never was the power of this revela- 
tion completely lost in the history of Israel. When 
the fires of patriotism or of national faith burned 
low, it was to this deliverance by power that the 
prophets harked back, and with the memory of it 
they again and again fanned into flame the dying 
courage of the nation. 

( d ) Just because this period deals with the de- worwpur ose 
liverance of Israel from all but total extinction, 

there is not much said about the extension of 
blessing to all the world. It is a question of 
saving from obliteration the very agency through 
which the world blessing is to come. Yet there 
is a development of this religious conception; 



58 



GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



Short but Sig- 
nificant. 



Deep Impres- 
sions. 



Jehovah's rule extends not only to His people 
who recognize His sway. It reaches with power 
and judgment to all nations who oppose His pur- 
poses, as these purposes find their concrete ex- 
pression in His will for His chosen Israel. 25 This 
is a world vision, though it is one of judgment 
and not of blessing. 

IV. Life in the Wilderness 

This period extends over forty years. This is 
but one-tenth of the length of the former period. 
But God does not measure periods by years. 
One day may be with Him as a thousand years, 
and this period seems to be vastly more signifi- 
cant in the unfolding of God's Plan than the 
period which preceded it. It will be easier to 
study it, if we consider, first, the development of 
Israel's life, and, secondly, the divine revela- 
tions which belong to this period. It must be 
recognized, however, that these two subjects are 
vitally related to each other. 

i. The Development of Israel's Life. Forty 
years of wilderness life would naturally make 
certain deep impressions. There would be phy- 
sical training in it. Long weary desert marches 
would produce a hardening of the muscles, and a 
wiry strength, which residence in Egypt could 
not develop. The Israelites ere long would be 

25 Ex. 14: 18; 15: 14-16. 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 59 

"in training." More important would be a new 
sense of independence and liberty, such as life 
under the shadow of a great Empire would 
scarcely encourage and such as the days of op- 
pression in Egypt wholly shut out. More im- 
portant yet was the opportunity for apprehend- 
ing the reality of Jehovah's presence and leader- 
ship. The desert environment is naturally more 
stimulating to the thought of God, than are the 
conditions of a very populous country ; there are 
greater opportunities for thought and medita- 
tion. And the very presence of Israel in the 
desert, out from under the Egyptian yoke of 
bondage, was a constant reminder of the reality 
of Jehovah God. To this were added repeated 
if not constant proofs of His manifest presence 
and power: the quails, and the manna, and the 
water issuing from the rock. To the most 
thoughtless and sceptical, God must have seemed 
a reality. It was part of the divine purpose that 
this profound religious conception should be 
burned into the life of the nation, until God 
should become a commonly recognized assump- 
tion of life. 

The mistake must not be made to think that J™P e e r J ect Re " 

sponse. 

Israel responded perfectly to the divine efforts 
for the development of its life. On the contrary, 
there was disobedience and disloyalty and open 
rebellion. Once, and that in the midst of a great 



60 god's plan for world redemption. 

religious convocation, the people gave them- 
selves up to idolatry. It is a vivid commentary 
upon their former life in Egypt. None too soon 
had they been brought out of that environment. 
Only the intercession of Moses and the most 
severe measures of punishment availed to pre- 
vent the abandonment of the chosen race by God. 
Again, the time came to enter the Promised 
Land. The people stood over against Kadesh- 
Barnea. It seemed the will of God that they 
should enter in and possess the land. In His 
providence, a political situation existed which 
made it seem "the time of times" to enter Ca- 
naan with the least opposition. Were there 
enough brave hearts in Israel to dare do it? The 
people wavered. With undaunted courage and 
faith Caleb hurled himself into the breach. "We 
Ranying n cry are we ^ zhle," was his rallying cry. It was the 
modern missionary rallying cry, anticipated by 
three thousand years : "We can do it, if we will." 
But Israel would not, and was turned back into 
the wilderness for some forty years. A genera- 
tion later, the slower and more painful conquest 
was accomplished, not by way of the South for 
that opportunity had passed, but by way of the 
Jordan. Again and again, the inspired writers 
hold up this portion of history to reveal the way 
in which human disobedience holds back and 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 6l 

thwarts the rapid unfolding of the divine Plan. 28 

If men will not take God's straight and easy 

way, which lies always in the direction of perfect 

obedience, He must needs lead them by a longer 

and more painful way. 

2. Divine Revelations: The Wilderness Pe- piyine Reve- 
lations, 
riod may be set down as the most important 

period in the history of Israel in the revelation of 
divine truth. It is true that the period of the 
great prophets falls very little behind this period 
in its contributions of divine revelation. Yet the 
revelations of the Wilderness Period are so fun- 
damental, so unique, so original, so comprehen- 
sive, so inexhaustible, that much of the prophetic 
material of the later periods seems but an elabor- 
ation of the truths revealed in the Wilderness 
Period. 

It is impossible, of course, within our limits to 
detail the content of divine revelation which came 
through Moses. The latter part of Exodus, and 
the books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteron- 
omy are taken up with the narration of these re- 
vealed laws. 

Almost all the fundamental conceptions of our 
Christian religion found statement or symbolical 
illustration in the revelations contained in these 
books of the Pentateuch. The study of these is 
a work by itself and whole volumes have been 



28 Ps. 106; 95; Acts 7: 1-53. 



62 god's plan for world redemption. 

written on the subject. Only the following re- 
ligious conceptions can be noted here: 

Monotheism. ( a ) Jehovah is the one and only true God. 

This doctrine of one God, monotheism, had been 
held even before Abraham's time, but in the Wil- 
derness Period it was consciously recognized as 
the supreme fact in Israel's religion, and idolatry 
was denounced as disloyalty to Jehovah. Ex. 20 : 
1-6; 32: 1-35; 34: 10-17. Lev. 24: 10-23. Deut. 
5: 6-10; 6: 4-5- 

(b) Jehovah God is holy, and requires of His 
people obedience to His holy laws. This truth 
was one of the most elaborated and most empha- 
sized of all teachings of the Wilderness Period. 
It was necessary to lay such emphasis upon it. 
The God of Israel was different from all gods 

a Holy God. chiefly in this: He was a God of holiness. The 
conception was fundamental to the whole scheme 
of redemption. Without the recognition of sin, 
there can be no recognition of the need for sal- 
vation. So emphasis was laid upon tmoral dis- 
tinctions in every possible way: in distinctions 
between the clean and the unclean in the physical 
sphere, in matters of food and clothing and resi- 
dence and sickness; in moral laws and injunc- 
tions ; and finally in all the strict rules and regu- 
lations relating to the Sabbath, to sacrifices, and 
to worship in the sanctuary. 27 

27 These references run through the whole body of laws 
belonging to this Period. Consult Fairbairn's "The Typology 
of Scripture." 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 63 

(c) The necessity of sacrifice is emphasized f t s C Lessons nd 
and its meaning is elaborated and illustrated. 
There were at least five kinds of sacrifice insti- 
tuted. The "burnt-offering" was for consecra- 
tion and thanksgiving (Lev. i). The "meal- 
offering" was a gift to secure God's favor (Lev. 
2). The "peace-offering" symbolized friendship 
and fellowship (Lev. 3). The "sin-offering" 
was for expiation and atonement (Lev. 4: 1-5: 
13). The "guilt-offering" symbolized satisfac- 
tion and reinstatement (Lev. 5: 14- 6: 7). No 
more important contribution to the unfolding of 
the Plan of World Redemption can be found 
than in the revelations of these Books of Moses 
relating to the priesthood and to sacrifice. The 
way was being made straight and plain which led 
to Calvary. 

V. Period of Conquest and Judges 

The Period of the Conquest and of the Judges 
extends from about 1280 B. C. to 1050 B. C. 
These are twenty-three decades concerning which 
we know comparatively little. The purpose of 
God moved forward, but apparentlv not with 
great rapidity. That failure of faith at Kadesh- 
Barnea had to receive its just punishment in the 
long deferred and, even then, imperfect con- 
quest of Canaan; while, at the same time., 
through the wisdom of God this punishment was 



6 4 



GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



God Their 
Leader. 



Imperfect 
Obedience. 



itself made to serve as a means of grace to re- 
move the unworthy elements in the nation's char- 
acter which had led to the collapse of faith at 
Kadesh-Barnea. 

During the days of conquest, Joshua was the 
leader of the nation. His leadership, however, 
was only of a subordinate character. He ever 
spoke in the name of Jehovah. The Leader of 
Israel was none other than Jehovah Himself. 88 
During these days of conquest, the sense of the 
reality of God was deepened ; the nation became 
still more conscious of God's leadership, as they 
moved forward to victory when obeying God, 29 
or fell back in confusion when disobeying Him. 30 
Moral distinctions were maintained by public 
proclamations 31 and special enforcements. 

The obedience of Israel, however, to the com- 
mand that the entire land be conquered, was most 
imperfect. 32 The result of this disobedience was, 
as with all disobedience, most disastrous, and 
God caused it to be a judgment upon Israel. 83 
Alas, how the disobedience of man hinders the 
speedy realization of the divine ideal ! Yet how 
marvelous is the patience of God that He bears 
with man's disobedience, and how marvelous His 
wisdom that, at last, He finds a way for the re- 
alization of His will ! 



28 Josh. 5: 13-15. 
»Josh. 6: 1-21. 
30 Josh. 7: 1-12. 



3* Josh. 8: 30-35. 
3a Judges 1: 24-34. 
35 Judges 2 : 10-23 ; 3 : 



1-6. 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 65 

The story of Israel's life under twelve judges J r * eVs Iron 
is given in the Book of Judges. It abounds in 
scenes of dramatic power and interest. This 
period has been called "Israel's iron age." The 
nation's life seemed to be a series of cycles in 
which disobedience to God was followed by some 
providential judgment; this resulted in a con- 
sciousness of sin and national repentance; then 
came some providential deliverer, the deliverance 
to be followed again by another lapse into na- 
tional unfaithfulness. These judges, or heroes, 
were "often rude and barbaric in their methods, 
were rather patriotic warriors than moral re- 
formers; and yet, under God's providence, their 
work in its ultimate results was more truly relig- 
ious than they knew, since they helped to shape 
that nation whose whole history was a prepara- 
tion for the coming of Christ." 

Retrospect 

Before passing on, it is well to look back and Progress Made, 
notice the progress which has been made in the 
Period of Preparation in so far as this Period 
has been studied. In the millenniums before 
Abraham, God is represented as dealing for the 
most part directly with the whole race. From 
Adam to Noah there was steady deterioration 
of the race. A new start was made with Noah, 
but again there was deterioration. The race as 
5 



66 god's plan for world redemption. 

a whole would not respond to this method of di- 
rect and universal dealing. 

An individual was then selected, Abraham. 
The individual became a family, the family a 
tribe, the tribe a nation. Not uniformly, not per- 
fectly, yet without any complete lapse, this hu- 
man channel for divine revelation was kept, 
throughout a millennium and a half, true to the 
divine purposes for which it had been selected. 
The elements of true religion had been revealed, 
moral standards of life and conduct had been 
embodied in human laws, and modes of worship, 
for the most part only symbolical as yet, had 
been prescribed. 
while 1 ? 1 Worth Was this progress worthy or unworthy of the 
millennium which had elapsed since God's call to 
Abraham? When we remember the frailty of 
the human agency through which God worked, 
when we remember the reluctance, the disloyalty, 
the disobedience, the sinful wilfulness of man, as 
God sought to lead him on farther and faster, we 
can but marvel that such good progress was 
made. As we think of the slight progress of two 
millenniums of the Christian era in the full light 
of divine revelation, the temptation to criticise 
this earlier era passes away. Man is not strait- 
ened in God. He is straitened only in himself. 



CHAPTER III 



Later Preparatory Days 



"If the Old Testament teaches in Genesis the universal 
creatorship of God; if in the first commandment it de- 
mands His worship alone; if in its definition of God it 
makes Him all in all; if the very name it uses for an 
idol signifies nothingness; if in Psalms and Prophets 
it summons all the ends of the earth to praise Him; if 
it narrates the divine attempt in Ruth and Jonah to 
turn the Jews from Pharisees into missionaries, then it 
does not for a moment permit us to rest in the doctrine 
of the ancient or the modern Pharisees that the king- 
dom of heaven on earth belongs to a particular race. 
The missionary character of the Bible inheres in the 
very texture of the Old Testament. 'And in thy seed 
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed/ " — Bishop 
J. W. Bashford. 



Ill 

LATER PREPARATORY DAYS 

THE Old Testament records which remain 
to be considered cover some six hundred 
years of the Hebrew nation's life. So 
extended is the time to be dealt with and 
so detailed the historical record, that it is only 
possible to touch on the main events of the na- 
tion's life, passing by for the most part all bio- 
graphical sketches. To these six centuries be- 
longs the story of almost all the books of the 
Old Testament which follow the eighth chapter 
of I Samuel. 

VI. Period of the United Kingdom 

By way of Samuel, that last and magnificent Israel a King- 
personality belonging to the order of Judges, and 
Saul, the first and most disappointing of all the 
kings of Israel, the Hebrew nation entered upon 
the last stage of national development and be- 
came a kingdom. 

Three kings only were permitted to rule over a 
united kingdom: Saul, David, Solomon. Under 
David and then under Solomon, the Hebrew 
kingdom reached a wonderful development. Sur- 

6 9 



JO god's plan for world redemption. 

rounding nations were conquered; the Philis- 
tines, Moab, Hadadezer king of Zo'bah, the 
Edomites, the Ammonites, Amalek — these all, 
at the hand of David. Under Solomon, the king- 
dom developed great material resources, numer- 
ous buildings and public works were undertaken, 
the great Temple of Solomon was built, a politi- 
cal policy of daring scope was adopted, and the 
fame of the Hebrew kingdom and of its king 
The Queen of reached to distant lands. The Queen of Sheba * 

Sheba. ^ 

came "from the ends of the earth" to visit this 
seat of renown and left as a proof of her admira- 
tion some three million dollars' worth of gold. 
"If we ask what were some of the beautiful 
things which the Queen of Sheba beheld, the 
record leads us to conclude that on every hand 
there was a great display of gold (from Ophir), 
and silver (probably from the mines of Spain and 
Asia Minor), precious stones and spices (from 
Arabia), almug trees or sandalwood (from In- 
dia), ivory (from India and eastern Africa), ce- 
dar wood (from Lebanon), a temple inlaid with 
pure gold, palaces and stairways beautifully or- 
namented, an endless array of servants and cup- 
bearers, gorgeous apparel, a rich cuisine, drink- 
ing-vessels of gold, officers in costly uniform, 
and horses and chariots ; in short, a capital wor- 
thy of a king whose wisdom and splendor eclipsed 

x Matt. 12: 42; I K. 10 ; 2 Chron. 9. 



LATER PREPARATORY DAYS. 7 1 

at the time all the other potentates of earth." :: It 
seems a far cry from the turbulent days of the 
Conquest, only some two centuries back, to this 
"Golden Age" of the Hebrew nation. 

This national experience which made of the The Kingdom 

and the Plan. 

Hebrew nation a kingdom and a monarchy, bore 
a very vital relation to the unfolding of the divine 
Plan. It was a development sanctioned finally by 
divine revelation, although at first the motives of 
the people who desired a king were denounced 
as unworthy. Among the services rendered by 
this national development were the following: 

(a) The religion of the nation found a more 
splendid setting and a more abiding center in the 
magnificent Temple of Solomon. This was built 
by divine sanction and must have added materi- 
ally to the prestige of the religion of Jehovah 
both within and beyond the limits of the Hebrew 
nation. 

(b) By its wider political contacts and influ- World-wide 

v y tt 1 • Witness. 

ence, the Hebrew nation became almost a world- 
wide witness to heathen nations, both in behalf 
of high standards of morality and in behalf of 
that religion which recognizes Jehovah as the 
only true God. 

(c) The new kingdom ideas and the new 
kingdom, experiences of the nation served as a 
canvas on which could be painted those higher 

2 G. L. Robinson's "Leaders of Israel." 



7 2 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

spiritual conceptions concerning the Kingdom of 
God ; David became the type of the coming King. 
The things that were, and which proved both im- 
perfect and transient, led forward to the thing 
which was yet to be, and which would be both 
perfect and abiding. 

(d) The religious conceptions of the Hebrew 
nation were being broadened, and reached out 
beyond the limits of Palestine. For the provi- 
dences of God were co-operating with the Spirit 
of God in enlarging the sympathies of Israel. 

The Missionary We may well ask here, How clearly did the 
religious leaders of this period realize the world- 
wide scope of the religion which they held as a 
national faith? In one sense, it matters not 
greatly whether they fully realized this world- 
wide scope or not, save as it might affect their 
own kindly disposition toward their heathen 
neighbors, or their own conception of God as a 
world God. It would be sufficient for us to 
know, as we do, that God's purposes were 
world-wide, whether the Hebrew nation realized 
it or not. Yet the question may be answered, 
and it may be answered out of the literature of 
this period. 

a world Crea- First, God is recognised as related to the whole 
world as Creator. Is it objected that this is only 
a material or physical relationship? So be it. 
"That is not first which is spiritual, but that 



LATER PREPARATORY DAYS. 73 

which is natural; then that which is spiritual." 
"As in all the spheres of divine operation," says 
Dr. James Orr, "grace invariably presupposes 
nature, so it is in this," The unqualified ascrip- 
tion to God of the creation of all things prepares 
the way for the assertion and the recognition of 
His ownership of all things ; and this thought of 
divine ownership is a necessary foundation which 
must be laid securely before we pass on to the 
thought of a divinely projected Kingdom. Even 
your benevolent philanthropist must first estab- 
lish his proprietorship over a given property be- 
fore he may project upon it his plans for its im- 
provement. 

Note then how God is declared to be Creator 
of all things: The heavens are the work of His 
fingers; the moon and the stars are ordained by 
Him (Ps. 8:3). The firmament is His handi- 
work (Ps. 19: 1). The son of man is His cre- 
ation (Ps. 8:5). As Creator, Jehovah is vested 
with full rights of ownership: "The earth is Je- 
hovah's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and 
they that dwell therein. For He hath founded it" 
(Ps. 24: 12). The claim is indisputable. Thus, 
as Creator of the universe, Jehovah is owner of it. 
His ownership of it gives Him the right to pro- 
ject upon it His divine will. 

These conceptions lie at the base of our mod- 
ern missionary activity: "The earth is Jeho- 



74 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

vah's." True, but His divine rights are not re- 
cognized on every side. To the Christian Church 
is committed to-day the task, with "the Sword 
of the Spirit/' to conquer and bring into loving 
subjection the world which is His. 

jud ^ orld Secondly. God is recognized as related to the 

zwhole world as Moral Judge. This, too, is a 
conception which makes the scope of religion 
world-wide and leads to the missionary idea. 

Jehovah is no tribal or racial God, who sets 
up petty and artificial standards of life and con- 
duct adapted only to a given age or race. Here 
is a God of essential righteousness, Whose laws 
and standards, essential like Himself, go forth 
into every age and place, testing every creature, 
regardless of rank or riches, of color or caste, of 
tribe or tongue. Among others, the following 
are the fundamental moral demands which Je- 
hovah God makes : Cleanness of hands, obedience 
(Ps. 18: 20, 21 ), purity, righteousness (Ps. 19: 
8, 9), truth (Ps. 25: 5), loving kindness, faith- 
fulness (Ps. 36: 5). 

He Goes Forth Neither is this moral code alone fitted to world- 
wide application, but Jehovah God is represented 
as actually going forth with this moral code to 
judge men and their works by it — not Israelites 
alone, but men generally : " Jehovah looked down 
from heaven upon the children of men to see if 
there were any that did understand, that did seek 



LATER PREPARATORY DAYS. /5 

after God" (Ps. 14: 2). "Jehovah, His throne 
is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids try, 
the children of men" (Ps. 11: 4). "Jehovah 
looketh from heaven; He beholdeth all the sons 
of men from the place of His habitation. He 
looketh forth upon all the inhabitants of the 
earth" (Ps. 33: 13, 14). "Thou sittest in the 
throne judging righteously. Thou hast rebuked 
the nations. Thou hast destroyed the wicked" 

(Ps. 9: 4, 5)- 

There are also explicit statements setting forth The Kingdom 
a world-wide Kingdom, the Kingdom of God 
among men. The Kingdom of God is, of course, 
sometimes identified with the kingdom of Israel, 
but we are told of the world-wide extent of the 
Kingdom : "Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the 
nations for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost 
parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Ps. 2: 
8). We know the divine character of the King- 
dom's King: "I will tell of the decree: Jehovah 
said unto Me, Thou art My Son ; this day have I 
begotten Thee" (Ps. 2:7). We see His just rule : 
"He will judge the world in righteousness" (Ps. 
9:8). We are told of a twofold method of ex- 
tending and establishing the Kingdom : force and 
persuasion. In some cases, force is depicted as at 
work: "Thou shalt break them with a rod of 
iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a pot- 
ter's vessel (Ps. 2: 8, 9). In Ps. 36: 5-12, sua- 



j6 god's plan for world redemption. 

sion is the compelling motive, although judgment 
accompanies it. If we turn to the prayer of Solo- 
mon at the dedication of the Temple, we shall 
read words of surpassing beauty in their broad 
sympathy for the alien. 8 
An Early Fui- When so much of God's will and purpose and 
methods was apprehended by the head of the He- 
brew nation, when such gratifying progress was 
being made in the unfolding of the divine Plan in 
and through the chosen Hebrew race, did it not 
seem as if, quickly now, the purposes of God 
might be realized, and Christ's coming might 
have been anticipated by one thousand years? 
We do not know all the factors in the delay. We 
do not know whether or not the great outside 
world, with which God was also dealing by some 
other preparatory methods, was ready for the 
next great stage in the unfolding of the divine 
Plan. We do know, however, that Israel itself 
had not grasped even that measure of truth which 
needed to be revealed before the coming of 
Christ, neither had Israel's life realized that 
moral cleansing which might cradle a divine In- 
carnation. There was vice in the palace ; doubt- 
less there was vice in the hovel. The times were 
not yet fulfilled. Man was not ready. The dis- 
cipline of several centuries must yet be. The 
messages of the prophets must yet come. 

3 I K. 8 : 41-43. 



LATER PREPARATORY DAYS. *]J 

VII. Period of the Divided Kingdom 

After the death of Solomon, the Kingdom of S£ id ^ ugdom 
Israel was rent in twain. The event had been 
prophesied in the days of Solomon as a punish- 
ment for his lust and idolatry.* "When he died, 
elements of discord pervaded the kingdom. His 
people were oppressed by excessive taxation, 
made necessary by his love of magnificence and 
the enormous projects in which he was involved." 
The Northern Kingdom, including ten of the 
twelve tribes, was established under Jeroboam; 
the Southern Kingdom consisting now only of 
Judah and Benjamin, continued under Reho- 
boam. "The division of the empire was one of 
the great turning points in Hebrew history. By 
one stroke it largely undid the work of Saul and 
David. The old breach between the north and 
the south, thus opened, was never again per- 
manently closed. The Hebrews never ceased to 
dream of world-wide conquest; but the actual 
course of history bore them to a very different 
goal. Each of the two Hebrew kingdoms, weak- 
ened by civil war, was henceforth exposed to 
almost constant attack from strong foes. As a 
result of these protracted wars, their strength 
was exhausted and they became weaker and 

* I K. 11 : 9-13. 



< 

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%,. 




THE FERRY PICTURES. 10 31. SARGENT, 1 8 5 6 - 

BOSTON EDITION. COPYRIGHT; 189 7, BY CURTIS & CAMERON. 



HOSEA. 



LATER PREPARATORY DAYS. 7Q 

weaker until they were ground under the iron 
heel of the Assyrians and Babylonians." 

The Northern Kingdom. For two centuries In the North - 
the Northern Kingdom maintained an indepen- 
dent existence. During this period it had nine- 
teen kings, but the line of succession was con- 
stantly being broken, so that these nineteen kings 
represent no less than nine dynasties. There 
seems to have been a steady moral and spiritual 
decline. Of the kings of the Northern Kingdom, 
all, with the exception of Jehu, 5 seem to have been 
men with unqualifiedly bad records. Like a dis- 
mal refrain it is recorded of almost all, "He did 
that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah." 

Yet Jehovah was gracious to the Northern 
Kingdom, and stood ready to use it also as a 
channel for divine revelation. Lion-hearted re- 
formers, such as Elijah and Elisha, and noble 
prophets, such as Amos, and Jonah (the first for- 
eign missionary prophet), and Hosea, were com- 
missioned either to try to stem the rising tide of 
immorality and godlessness, or else to minister to 
the further development of the nation's concep- 
tion of God. Did ever the missionary heart of 
God reveal itself more perfectly than in the nar- 
rative of the Book of Jonah and in the compas- 
sion which He is portrayed as having for the 
heathen city of Nineveh ? Of the work and sue- 

5 II K. 10: 30. 



80 god's plan for world redemption. 

cess of these prophets, the following paragraphs 
tell clearly : 
The^ Supreme "The supreme miracle of Israel's history is that out of 
.1 this period of overwhelming doubt there arose certain 
men like Amos and Hbsea, whose faith was strengthened 
rather than daunted by the problems of the hour, and 
who beheld with clear vision, not a God weak or capri- 
cious who ruled as merely the champion of little Israel, 
but one supreme God of justice and love, who absolutely 
and justly controlled the forces of nature as well as the 
affairs of men. They recognized that the impending 
advance of Assyria was not because Jehovah was pow- 
erless or regardless of the fortunes of his people; it 
was rather because of Israel's deep-seated guilt. They 
appreciated the necessity for some great revolutionizing 
experience which would turn the people from their 
apostasy and crimes to the recognition of the character 
and demands of the one true God who had ever guided 
them from the first and had in store for them a destiny, 
if they were but prepared for it, far more glorious than 
popular poet had ever pictured. Assyria, therefore, was, 
in their eyes, Jehovah's agent, not of mere judgment, but 
of that discipline which was necessary before Israel 
would be prepared for the noble destiny which awaited it. 
"In the stress of their own personal and national 
experiences, Amos and Hosea likewise saw clearly the 
insufficiency of ithe popular religion and ceremonial 
formalism of their day. The God of justice and love 
whom they beheld could not be worshipped or pleased 
by mere forms and sacrifices. Hence they proclaimed 
the immortal truth, which humanity has been so slow 
to accept, that justice and mercy and love toward God 
and man are the only gifts which will win the divine 
favor. 



LATER PREPARATORY DAYS. 8 1 

"The Northern Israelites as a whole failed utterly to Failure in the 
respond to the plain, convincing appeals of their noblest 
prophets. Hence the nation lost its life, as Amos and 
Hosea had predicted. A few thoughtful souls doubt- 
less paid heed, and in their own spiritual experience 
realized, in the face of public and private disaster, the 
truth of the words which the prophets had proclaimed. 
Northern Israel lost its life, but Judah became the heir 
of its rich spiritual heritage, and preserved and trans- 
mitted it, so that to-day that exalted ethical spiritual 
monotheism, first revealed to a few earnest men and 
by them flashed before the bewildered vision of the 
corrupt rulers and leaders of Northern Israel, has be- 
come the possession and inspiration of all mankind." 

The Southern Kingdom. During the two cen- ia the south, 
turies of the Period of the Divided Kingdom, the 
Southern Kingdom maintained unbroken the Da- 
vidic line of kings. For the most part, these 
also were unworthy characters; almost all of 
them idolators. Was it any wonder that the Plan 
of God could unfold but slowly, under such cir- 
cumstances? Three of the kings of Judah did in- 
stitute reforms, Asa, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah ; 
and prophets were raised up to call the nation 
back to God, Joel, Isaiah and Micah, possibly also 
Obadiah. Again and again did Isaiah, "the king 
of prophets," call the king of Judah back from 
political entanglements which spelled disloyalty 
to God and national ruin. Thus was the nation 
saved from greater moral decay on the one hand 
and from immediate political ruin on the other. 



Prophets. 



82 god's plan for world redemption. 

Meanwhile, the very darkness of the political and 
religious outlook was being used of God to turn 
the thoughts of the spiritually-minded toward the 
more distant Hope. Isaiah and Micah prophe- 
sied both in this period, and in the next, when 
their prophecies will be referred to. Joel, how- 
ever, is thought by many to belong to this period. 6 
His prophecy contains a call to repentance and a 
gracious promise. In the former, he lifts the 
vision of an impending crisis, "the day of the 
Lord." In the latter he refers so luminously to 
that which had at least a beginning of fulfilment 
on the Day of Pentecost: "It shall come to pass 
afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all 
flesh. ,, T 

VIII. Period of the Single Kingdom 

With the fall of Samaria in 722 B. C, the 
Northern Kingdom came to an end. This date, 
however, was of little significance to the South- 
ern Kingdom as its life was preserved until the 
Exile in 586 B. C. The ministries of Isaiah and 
Micah extended into this period, and there ap- 
peared also, Jeremiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zepha- 
niah. 

Two characteristics of this period are note- 
worthy. One was the increasing corruption, 

6 Others refer Joel 3 : 1-2 to the exile of Judah instead of 
Israel and assign the prophet to a post-exilic period. 

7 Joel 2 : 28 ; Cf. Acts 2 : 17. 



LATER PREPARATORY DAYS. 83 

which was manifesting itself. The other was the 
increasingly spiritual vision of prophecy. 

Corruption was increasing. But one king can corruption in- 
be reckoned good, Josiah. Announcements of 
impending divine judgments are received with 
scorn and defiance. 8 The prophets are impris- 
oned for speaking in the name of Jehovah. False 
prophets catch the public ear. 10 The nation claims 
immunity from danger, and political security, be- 
cause of its covenant relations with God, 11 at a 
time when its life is in open defiance of the laws 
of God. Could God reveal to an age so corrupt 
His glorious plans of redemption ? As though to 
challenge these evils, through the messengers of 
God more daring declarations than ever were 
made. God seemed to use the darkest hour of 
Israel's history to bring out the most brilliant 
stars of hope. 

The fulfilment of God's Plan is variously por- Go^ r pian. 
trayed. It is a Kingdom. 1 * It is a world with 
the house of Jehovah as its center of interest. 13 
It is an exalted Zion. 14 Its blessedness baffles de- 
scription. It brings joy. 15 It brings peace and 
justice, forgiveness and health. 16 Death is taken 
away. 17 God is the great Defender. 18 

8 Jer. 36: 23, 24. ** Isa. 2: 2-4. 

9 2 Chron. 36 : 16 ; 14 Zech. 8 : 1-7. 
Jer. 26 : 20-23. 15 Isa. 9 : 3. 

10 Jer. 28. 16 Isa. 33: 17-24. 

11 Jer. 7:4. 1T Isa. 25 : 8. 

13 Micah 4:8. 18 Zech. 12 : 8, 9. 



A World Vi- 
sion. 



84 god's plan for world redemption. 

Holiness. j n contrast with existing conditions of evil, 

there will be conditions of holiness, and all will 
"be called holy, even every one that is written 
among the living in Jerusalem; when the Lord 
shall have washed away the filth of the daugh- 
ters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of 
Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of 
justice and by the spirit of burning" (Isa. 4: 3, 
4). The people of that Golden Age will serve 
Jehovah. 19 His law will be written on their 
hearts. 20 There will be cleansing from all sin. 11 

The scope of these blessed purposes is world- 
wide. "Jehovah shall be known to Egypt, and 
the Egyptians shall know Jehovah in that day" 
(Isa. 19: 21). "The veil that is spread over all 
the nations'" shall be taken away. All languages 
shall be cleansed from their pollution. 82 

Just because of the greatness of the work and 
the magnitude of the divine plan, it will require 
supernatural power to carry it through. "The 
zeal of Jehovah of hosts will perform this" (Isa. 
37: 32). The human agency through which this 
divine working will manifest itself is Israel. Not 
all Israel, but the true Israel, even though this 
element be so small as to be called nothing but a 
Remnant.* 3 Then again, elsewhere, the agency 

19 Jer. 30: 9. 

*>Jer. 31: 31-34. 

31 Zech. 13: 1, 2. 

- 2 Isa. 25: 7; Cf. 2 Cor. 3 : 16 ; Zeph. 3: 9. 

*Isa. 37: 32; 10: 20, 21. 



LATER PREPARATORY DAYS. 85 

becomes an agent, an Anointed One, a Branch, 24 
the Servant of Jehovah,* 3 the King. 26 

The time for the fulfilment of the farther and §^ pl a e nd De . 
the nearer purposes of God is described as u that str °y ed - 
day/' * "at the end of the days/' ■ "the day of 
Jehovah." " 

IX. Period of Exile 

In 586 B. C., the city of Jerusalem, with the 
Temple of Solomon, was destroyed and, shortly 
afterward, the best blood of the nation was taken 
off to Babylonia in captivity. The effect of this 
political disaster was to overwhelm forever the 
claims of those who had attached a magical vir- 
tue to the Temple and who had regarded the 
chosen nation as secure from punishment, no 
matter what its sins might be. It shattered that 
confidence in a ceremonial religion which the ma- 
terially-minded element in the nation had enter- 
tained. Jehovah was revealed to be a God Who 
set a supreme value upon moral quality. He 
would rather have His Temple destroyed, than 
permit His moral law to be broken with impunity. 
He preferred reality in religion to a formal wor- 
ship. His choice of Israel was for moral ends 
and great unselfish purposes. If Israel as a na- 

24 Isa. 11: 1-5; Jer. 23: 5. 

26 Isa. 42: 1-4; 52: 13-53: 12. 
■•Zech. 9: 9-10; Isa. 9 : 6 ; 33 : 17. 

27 Micah. 4:6. ** Isa. 2:2. » Zeph. 1 : 7. 



86 god's plan for world redemption. 

tion would not serve these ends and purposes, He 
would reject the nation and crush their national 
life, if so He might draw out of the mass a rem- 
nant that would realize His will. 
Needed! 111128 ^wo things needed now to be done to carry- 

forward the purposes of God in His dealings 
with the exiled race. There was need for some 
influence to be exerted upon their oppressors to 
mitigate the rigors of their captivity. This need 
was met in Daniel. There was need for some 
one to inspire the courage and guide the spiritual 
hopes of the exiles themselves. This need was 
met in Ezekiel. Wrapped in symbolism which 
forbids dogmatic interpretation, both prophets 
foretell the deliverances of the remnant and the 
consummation of the Kingdom purposes of God. 

X. Period of Restoration 

The Return. In 538 B. C, permission is given to the Jews 

to return to Jerusalem, and rebuild their temple. 
About 43,000 of them did so. These would na- 
turally be the more patriotic and the more pious 
of the exiles. Almost insuperable difficulties 
faced them as they sought to restore their city 
and rebuild the Temple. For this hour of gloom 
and of fear, prophets were raised up — Haggai, 
Zechariah and Malachi — who warned the people 
against the false ceremonial religion of former 
days and against a false confidence in formal 



LATER PREPARATORY DAYS. 8? 

covenant relations, and who brought to the people 
prophecies of a supernatural co-operation which 
would make the mountain to become a plain: 
"Not by might nor by pow T er, but by My Spirit, 
saith Jehovah of hosts." 

Retrospect 

Thus we come to the close of the Old Testa- Looking Back, 
ment record by surveys which have been indeed 
most hurried and most superficial, but which may 
have this advantage, that they set forth with 
clearness the double work of God : by His provi- 
dences guiding and moulding the life of His peo- 
ple ; and by His revelations unfolding to them the 
spiritual truth which was for their immediate sal- 
vation and for the subsequent service of the 
whole race. 

In a former chapter, Israel's development was 
followed until the time when Israel became a 
kingdom. In this chapter God's great Plan is 
seen portrayed in bolder and more sweeping out- 
line, as the providence of God widened the hori- 
zon of the nation. Had the human channel of di- 
vine revelation, Israel, remained but a family or 
a tribe, it would not have been able to grasp nor 
express God's great thought for human redemp- 
tion. But in the life of the chosen race appeared 
great traits of evil. Israel was neither true to 
the leadings of Jehovah's providences, nor true 



88 



GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



Leading Up. 



A Threefold 
Need. 



to the teachings of Jehovah's revelation. Through 
such an agency the divine Plan could not be un- 
folded. Decades and centuries of discipline and 
pleading intervened in which judgment and mercy 
mingled, so that a worthy people, be they ever 
so few, might be developed to grasp God's 
thought and do God's will. 

The process cannot be followed in all its de- 
tails. All the events of Israel's life are not re- 
corded for us. The full significance of the events 
which are recorded is not always explained. 
Enough is at hand to show that in the end, God's 
great Preparatory Stage reached a successful 
conclusion. Divine truth, moral teachings, relig- 
ious conceptions, a knowledge of God, a realiza- 
tion of sin — these all were transmitted to man, 
and had become the possession of man unto sal- 
vation for those who believed and obeyed. Fur- 
thermore a race had been developed within whose 
life the conditions were fulfilled which God 
wanted for the next great step in the unfolding 
of His Plan, — the Incarnation. 

The Old Testament dispensation had unfolded 
man's need along three distinct lines ; and God's 
Plan even in its preparatory stage, had made a 
partial provision for these three needs, while at 
the same time it promised that the perfect and 
permanent provision would come in God's good 
time. ( i ) The first need unfolded was that for a 







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90 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

priest who would mediate between a holy God 
and a guilty sinner, and a sacrifice which would 
expiate sin. The Aaronic priesthood and the 
elaborate sacrificial rites which were instituted, 
set forth this need and symbolized God's future 
provision for it. (2) The second need unfolded 
was that for a king who would be at the head of 
the kingdom to lead in time of war and rule in 
time of peace. He was needed to exercise au- 
thority, unite the conflicting interests of the 
many by his sovereign will, and be the honored 
head of the nation. If an Israelite had been 
asked to state this need more definitely, he would 
instantly have described it in terms of what King 
David meant to the Hebrew nation. (3) The 
third need unfolded was that for a prophet, one 
who would reveal fully and perfectly the charac- 
ter and will of God. 

The earnest soul, hungering for this knowl- 
edge of God and this fellowship with Him, asked 
whether this threefold need could be met. "Yes," 
comes the answer: 

"It shall be 
A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to me, 
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like 

this hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee: See 

the Christ stand!" 



CHAPTER IV 



Christ's Place in God's Plan 



"Christianity is the final religion, because all further 
progress in our knowledge of God and His ways must 
be based upon and conditioned by the saving power of 
Jesus Christ Whatever else God may do for the race, 
He will not abolish the supreme significance of our 
Lord." — W. Douglas Mackenzie. 

"And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
More strong than all poetic thought." 

— Alfred Tennyson. 

"The coming of the Christ is God's plan for each 
people whose life He maintains on the earth. They 
wait for Him." — W. O. Carver. 



IV. 

CHRIST'S PLACE IN GOD'S PLAN 

4 i *^\TT HEN the fulness of the time came, 
\U God sent forth His Son." The 
days of Preparation are over, the 
Period of Realization has begun. 
The Sacrifice, toward which pointed all earlier 
sacrifices, is to be provided. The Priest, of 
which Aaron and his house were but imperfect 
forerunners, is to be inducted into office. The 
King, for whom David served for a millennium 
as type, is to appear. The Prophet, who will per- 
fectly reveal the full-orbed truth concerning 
which "the prophets sought and searched dili- 
gently,'' is to come forth. We pass from the Old 
Testament to the New, from Israel to Christ. 
The divine Plan which began with a single life 
sweeps back to a single Life. 

Is it not a new Plan, some change of purpose Not a New 
on the part of God? No. It is the same Plan. 
In proof of this, see how Christ's life and work 
are linked up with God's past dealings with Is- 
rael. The first announcement of His coming was 
made in the Temple. 1 He was born in Bethle- 

x Luke 1: 8-17. 

93 



94 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

hem, the home of Israel's shepherd king. He 
came of Jewish lineage. He was brought up as 
a Jewish lad. He studied and was master of the 
Jewish Scriptures. His life is constantly por- 
trayed as a fulfilment of the prophecies of former 
days. 2 His message was the message of earlier 
days, only ampler, fuller. So loyal was He to all 
past unfoldings of God's Plan, that He could 
say, "Think not that I came to destroy the law or 
the prophets: I came not to destroy but to ful- 
fil" (Matt. 5 : 17). So much did He feel Himself 
to be a part of that Plan that He could say to 
the unspiritual men who criticised Him for break- 
ing with the past, "Your father Abraham re- 
joiced to see My day; and he saw it and was 
glad" (John 9: 56). It is the same Plan of 
World Redemption which was given to the race 
after the Fall, when the words of hope were 
The oid spoken, "He shall bruise thy head and thou shalt 

bruise his heel" (Gen. 3 : 15). It is the same 
Plan of World Redemption which called Abra- 
ham out of Haran and said to him, "In thee shall 
all the families of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 12: 
3). It is the same Plan of World Redemption 
which found such wonderful revelation through 
Isaiah, the king of prophets : The same Plan still, 
but now in the Period of its Realization. The 
agency is no longer Israel, wilful, reluctant, way- 

*Luke 24: 27. 



Promise. 



CHRIST S PLACE IN GOD S PLAN. 95 

ward, disobedient. The Agent is Christ, faith- 
ful, obedient, willing, blameless. And so, the un- 
folding of the divine Plan is perfect. 

Quietly came God's perfect Agent for human How He came, 
redemption, "like the breaking of each new day 
from the silent cavern of night, like the stir of 
happy spring from the fruitless winter-tide." A 
babe was born in a manger at Bethlehem. Of 
His early life we know but little. He was 
brought up in a carpenter's home in Nazareth. 
Nazareth was a town with an evil reputation. It 
must have had at least its share of sinful and 
spotted lives. But the Boy Jesus kept His life 
unspotted and pure. He "did not have what was 
regarded as a liberal education, — the Pharisees 
of Jerusalem counted this a reproach 3 — but 
what educational advantages Nazareth afforded 
were doubtless placed at His disposal." Follow- 
ing the custom of His people, He learned a trade, 
the trade of His father. So He became a carpen- 
ter. Justin Martyr says He made plows and 
yokes. Almost the only record of these years of 
His life is, that He "advanced in wisdom and 
stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke 
2: 52). He arrived at young manhood. He 
went forth from Nazareth and gathered a group 
of men about Him and taught them. They fol- 
lowed Him. Just why, they did not know. He 

8 John 7: 15. 



96 god's plan for world redemption. 

ing way mand ~ ^ a( ^ a commanding way. He had a wonderful 
personality. He unfolded truth in a wondrous 
manner. Their lives were gripped by what He 
was, by what He said, and by what He did ; and 
so they continued to follow Him. Every day they 
seemed to get new points of view about things. 
They tried to adjust their old ideas about things 
to the new ideas which they learned from Him, 
but the new ideas always seemed truer and more 
real than the old. They asked themselves more 
than once the question, Who is this man ? Other 
people were asking the same question. 4 Now no 
one of these disciples had any desire to do mor£ 
than answer the question in the simplest way pos- 
sible. They had been brought up to be very care- 
ful of that word, divine. Jesus was an unusual 
man: but that didn't explain it all. Jesus was a 
prophet : but that didn't explain everything satis- 
factorily. One day, one of their own number 
gave an answer, and said to this their Leader, 

He is God. "Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God." 
This description of His Person was endorsed by 
the Master Himself. The more the disciples 
thought of it, the more it seemed that this de- 
scription and this one alone would meet all the 
facts in the case. And the most wonderful thing 
about it was, that this position did not seem to 
upset or do violence to their belief in One God. 

*John 7: 12, 40, 41. 



Christ's place in god s plan. 97 

The world now speaks of this great truth as the 
Incarnation, God appearing in human flesh in the 
Person of Jesus Christ. 

The Incarnation 

The Incarnation revealed God; it completed 
and perfected the work which the prophets had 
attempted to do. "God, having of old time 
spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers 
portions and in divers manners, hath at the end 
of these days spoken unto us in a Son" (Heb. 
1 : 1, 2). Jesus Christ revealed the character and 
will of God, the Father, in three ways: by what 
He was, by what He said, and by what He did ; 
that is, by His life, by His words, and by His 
works ; that is, as a Person, as a Teacher, and as 
a Worker. There were two directions, especi- 
ally, in which Jesus Christ made a perfect revela- 
tion of God the Father. 

(1) He revealed the holiness of God. God J^^nnlss 118 
had sent prophet after prophet to declare to men 
the holiness of God. But no one had yet lived 
out, in actual life, that holiness. Man after man 
— prophet, priest, king — had lived and died, but 
they had all lived and died with the stain of sin 
upon their lives, until men came to believe that 
sin was a necessary evil, and so they began to 
excuse the sin of their own lives. Then it was 
that God, "sending His own Son in the likeness 
7 



98 god's plan for world redemption. 

of sinful flesh .... condemned sin in the 
fl$sh." Christ came. He lived as a boy in Naz- 
areth. It was not a town with any good reputa- 
tion. Christ was no wealthy lad, whose wealth 
would cut Him off from other lives around Him. 
He was a carpenter lad, and as such would come 
into touch with the general crowd of village boys. 
Yet He kept His life clean. It can be done. He 
did it. He grew to be a man. His work took 
Him among the lowest and most degraded, yet 
the evil of their lives did not enter His soul. He 
called twelve disciples to be His followers. Of 
these, one was a miser; another had a tendency 
to evil language. Yet Christ's life was not 
tainted. So pure was His heart that He could 
teach men by example, as well as by word of 
mouth, saying, "Blessed are the pure in heart: 
for they shall see God." 5 So pure were His 
thoughts that He could carry His preaching be- 
yond the sphere of action and condemn the pas- 
sionate thoughts of men. So blameless was His 
life that He could challenge His enemies saying, 
"Which of you convicteth Me of sin?"* His 
enemies, scanning His life with the keen eyes of 
hatred, could not fasten upon any sin. What 
John said was true : "We beheld His glory, glory 
as of the only begotten from the Father." T What 
Paul said was true: He was "the image of the 

5 Matt. 5: 8. 6 John 8: 46. T John 1: 4. 



CHRIST S PLACE IN GOD S PLAN. 99 

invisible God." 8 What He Himself said was 
true : "He that beholdeth Me beholdeth Him that 
sent Me." 9 

(2) Christ also revealed the love of God. He The unveiling 

1 1 • • • °* Love. 

loved the unloving. It is an easy thing to merely 
respond to love, but to go forth with love for 
those whose hearts were yet unloving, was 
Christ's way. Men did not seek Him. He sought 
them, and finding them loved them, and His 
love smote "the chords of self, that, trembling 
into music, pass from sight." Long afterward, 
the Apostle John wrote of what Christ had taught 
him about God at this point, "Herein is love, not 
that we loved God, but that He loved us." ™ 

Christ loved the unlovely as well as the unlov- 
ing. It is said that Science teaches "the survival 
of the fittest," but that Jesus teaches "the salva- 
tion of the unfittest." If He had chosen for His 
followers, the cultured, the talented, the gener- 
ous, the educated, His love might have been easily 
understood. But He called fishermen, Galileans, 
men of little education. He brought one most 
unlovely character into the inner circle of His 
love, to give him, so far as we can judge, a 
chance, the best possible chance. His deeds of 
mercy lead Him, not to palaces but to the poor. 
The loathsome leper, whom others would not 
even approach, He touched. 11 

8 Col. 1 : 15. 10 1 John 4 : 9. 

9 John 12 : 45. " Matt. 8 : 3. 



IOO GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

Christ loved sinners. There is nothing which 
so cuts men off from others as moral defilement. 
And just because of this, the Jews of Christ's 
time were only able to emphasize the holiness of 
God at the expense of His love. Christ revealed 
a God of Holiness, Who is also a God of Love. 
He, the blameless One, was a friend of publicans 
and sinners. And the love His life revealed has 
come down the centuries to answer the doubts 
and fears of sin-burdened hearts: 

"So vile I am, how dare I hope to stand 
In the pure glory of that holy land? 
Before the whiteness of that throne appear? 
Yet there are hands stretched out to draw me near. 
It is the voice of Jesus that I hear; 
His are the hands stretched out to draw me near." 

If more can be said, it would be to point out 
that Christ even loved those who were aliens or 
enemies. He had taught, "Love your enemies, 
and pray for them that persecute you." u But 
Christ lived the truth He had taught. He healed 
one of those who came to arrest Him. 13 He for- 
gave those who slew Him. 14 
The Perfect Thus was it that Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, 

Prophet. 

performed perfectly the office of prophet, and 
gave to man the full and final revelation of the 
Godhead. This part of God's great Plan for 
World Redemption was realized. 

12 Matt. 5 : 44. « Luke 22 : 50, 51. « Luke 23 : 34. 



CHRIST S PLACE IN GOD S PLAN. IOI 

The Crucifixion 

Jesus Christ understood perfectly that the ££f es f erfect 
work which He had to do, went further than 
what He did as prophet in revealing the charac- 
ter and will of God. As prophet He had chiefly 
to do with ignorance. There was guilt also to be 
dealt with. This task fell to the priest, offering 
up sacrifice. God's Plan for World Redemp- 
tion called for a blameless priest and for a per- 
fect sacrifice. Christ was both in one. He of- 
fered Himself up, even unto death. 

His death was not accidental. It was neces- 
sary. He recognized the necessity for it in the 
Plan, and walked toward it deliberately. Even 
references to this part of His mission caused the 
multitudes that followed Him to fall away. 15 
His explicit announcement of His impending 
death led one of His own disciples to make ob- 
jections. 16 But Christ went straight on in the 
way to Calvary. He knew, as we know now, 
that it was a necessary part of the Plan. He 
knew, as we do not, just how necessary it was. 
He measured the full meaning of Sin, as He 
overcame it by His death. We can only stand by 
and wonder at it all, — what an awful thing Sin 
must be when it makes the Son of God suffer so ! 
No, we can do more than wonder at it all ; we can 

15 John 6: 60-66. 16 Mark 8: 31-33. 



102 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

receive the blessings which stream from this Sac- 
rifice for sin: pardon, peace, a new sense of the 
heinousness of sin, a new impulse of love for 
Him Who so loved us. Yes, and we can do more 
than receive; we can impart the good news and 
its power to others. 

What needed to be done then, was done by 
Christ. Dr. G. Campbell Morgan sets forth the 
significance of Christ's priestly work by referring 
to the Old Testament ritual which foreshadowed 
it: 

Symbolism of "(i) The outer court was the place of service and 
the anctuary. sacr j£ ce The g rea ter part of Mark's Gospel has to 
do with that outer court. There He perfected service 
in the dedication of His life; and consummated sacri- 
fice in the mystery of His consent to death in Geth- 
semane. The actually atoning death was accomplished, 
without the camp, where He went, bearing 'our sins in 
His own body on the tree.' 

"(2) The holy place contained the table of shew- 
bread, the seven-branched lamp, and the altar of in- 
cense. The dedication of the outer court being com- 
pleted by the final sin offering beyond the court in the 
place of excommunication, the Priest turned back, and 
by the way of resurrection He entered the holy place; 
and for a little I see Him, the risen but not ascended 
Lord, tarrying among His people: in the place of the 
candlestick, of light and testimony; of the table of 
shewbread, of communion and fellowship; of the holy 
altar of incense, of prevailing intercession. 

"(3) Then the High Priest by ascension entered the 
holy of holies, 'there to appear in the presence of God 



CHRIST S PLACE IN GOD S PLAN. IO3 

for us;' and the final note is that of His co-operation 
with His own, when it is said that they went every- 
where preaching and working, 'the Lord working with 
them. , As He passed in through the rent veil, He left 
/the way open, and all those of us who share His life 
have access where He is, and that is the true place of 
our worship. 

"At last the true Priest is found, and there is need 
for no other; but there is no other way of approach to 
God save through His mediation." 

The King and the Kingdom 

On the very day of His fulfilment of the su- The Perfect 
preme act of His priestly commission, Christ re- 
ferred in unmistakable terms to another office 
which He held : "And Pilate asked Him, Art 
Thou the King of the Jews ? And He answering 
saith unto him, Thou sayest" (Mark 15 : 2). And 
so, a little later, Pilate placed over His cross the 
inscription "The King of the Jews/' The ques- 
tion that was asked at His birth was, "Where is 
He that is born King of the Jews?" Between 
Christ's birth and His death is to be found a suc- 
cession of utterances in which Christ's claims to 
Kingship are asserted. It is a great study and 
one which calls for an altogether separate treat- 
ment, to examine into Christ's teachings on this 
subject. Only a few outstanding features of 
Christ's teachings on this point can be referred to. 

There is no doubt about the reality of the 



104 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

a Real King- Kingdom to which Christ refers. This was no 

dom. ° 

mere figure of speech. As truly as He was mak- 
ing atonement for sin, just so truly was He 
founding a Kingdom. It was not a material 
kingdom/ 7 but it was a real Kingdom for all 
that. It might have no resemblance to what or- 
dinarily went by that word, 18 but in spite of that 
it was a real thing. Those who were brought 
into that Kingdom might be slow in realizing 
what it was, but that did not destroy the reality 
of it, any more than a new-born babe's inability 
to grasp the fact of the material world into 
which it had been born, would alter the reality of 
that world. 

The Kingdom has been thought by some to be 
portrayed as only in the future ; 19 by others, as 
wholly in the present. 20 A better view may be 
that it is both 21 present and future. Its present 
existence does not possess all those characteris- 
tics of glory which its future realization will pos- 
sess. None the less is the Kingdom a present 
reality. 

The Kingdom is a spiritual Kingdom. 22 It is 
associated with certain spiritual changes a3 which 
its members have experienced, and certain spir- 

17 John 18 : 36. ai Matt. 13 : 37-43. 

18 Matt. 5 : 3-10. » Luke 17 : 21. 

19 Matt. 16 : 27, 28. 2S John 3 : 5. 
*>Matt. 13: 24, 31, 33. 



Christ's place in god's plan. 105 

itual relations which they sustain toward God* 4 
and toward each other B and toward the world. 26 

The Kingdom is vitally, inseparably connected 
with the Person of Christ™ who is King of the 
Kingdom. There is no Kingdom apart from the 
King. He does not come to be enthroned over a 
kingdom. He comes to found the Kingdom, to 
create it, by bringing men into relations with 
Himself. 

The glory of the Kingdom is to be revealed 
at some future day, when the King returns in 
glory. 28 Meanwhile, it has its stages ** of pro- 
gress and of extension, but the full realization of 
it belongs to the future period which we have 
called God's Great Next in the unfolding of the 
divine Plan. 

The Gift of the Holy Spirit 

One more provision for world redemption was The Gift of 

Power. 

made during this Period of Realization. Not 
only did Christ bring the perfect revelation of 
God ; not only did He make the perfect sacrifice 
for sin; not only did He lay the foundations of 
the ideal Kingdom ; but the Holy Spirit was also 
given. Here the unfolding of the divine Plan 
outreached, in the most conspicuous way of all, 

24 Matt. 7: 21. » John 5: 21, 22; 14: 6. 

25 Matt. 20: 25-28. » Matt. 24: 30, 31. 

26 John 17: 14, 15. » Matt. 24: 6. 



106 god's plan for world redemption. 

all the anticipations of man. There had been 
clear and definite prophecies concerning the gift 
of the Spirit in the Old Testament, 30 but, after all, 
expectation was focussed upon the coming Mes- 
siah. This was a correct unfolding of God's 
Plan, for the Messiah was to come first, and only 
His coming and sacrifice made it possible for the 

AWdS. to HoI y Spirit to be given. 31 In this sense the Holy 

Spirit was the Gift of Christ, 32 and, furthermore, 
after He was given at Pentecost never to be with- 
drawn, He is still represented as being given to 
the individual on the basis of his relation to the 
sacrificial work of Christ. 33 The gift of the Holy 
Spirit is then a part of the believer's inheritance 
in Christ. If he is saved at all, if Christ has 
made any provision of pardon for him, He has 
equally made provision of the gift of the Holy 
Spirit for him. There is nothing to do but to 
claim by faith the gift of the indwelling and in- 
filling Spirit, 34 just as forgiveness is appropriated 
by faith. 

Christ's Agent. But why the gift of the Holy Spirit in the un- 
folding of the divine Plan of World Redemption ? 
Was not the work of Jesus Christ Himself suf- 
ficient? Did He not lay the basis for world re- 
demption adequately? Yes, but the Holy Spirit 
was given as the Great Divine Agent for the 



80 Joel 2: 28-29. 




33 Acts 2: 


28. 


"John 16: 7. 




3 *Gal. 3: 


14. 


a* John 14: 26; 15: 


26. 







CHRIST S PLACE IN GOD S PLAN. 10/ 

next period, the Period of Application. He is to 
apply to human life the work which Christ re- 
alized. 

So the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to men. The He Reveals, 
disciples, for example, did not apprehend at all 
adequately the deity of this Jesus with whom 
they had been having fellowship, until the Holy 
Spirit was given. They were slow to apprehend 
truth, 35 even when the Master sought to teach 
them in His own patient and simple way. What 
hope that they would ever learn after He was 
gone? This hope: "He, the Spirit of truth . . 
shall guide you into all truth" (John 15: 12-14). 

The Holy Spirit also applies to men the aton- ^^ QS Atone - 
ing work of Jesus Christ. He applies the sacri- 
fice of Christ, in its redeeming power, 36 in its 
cleansing power, 37 in its gifts of fellowship with 
God. 38 

The Holy Spirit also applies to men the King- g£ wns Christ 
ship of Christ. It is through the Holy Spirit 
that the rebellious will and the evil imagination 
and the lawless appetite, are brought into sub- 
jection to Christ the King. 89 So, too, on the posi- 
tive side of life, it is through the Holy Spirit that 
Christ leads His followers forth to world con- 
quest, girding them with strength, illumining 

85 John 14: 9, 26. s7 Rom. 8: 12-14. 

56 Rom. 8: 1-4. » Rom. 8: 15-17. 

39 Rom. 8 : 7-9 ; Z Cor. 10 : 4, 5 ; Eph. 5 : 18. 



108 god's plan for world redemption. 

their minds, baptizing them with courage and 
even with superhuman power. 40 

Thus it is that, by the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ 
projects His life and work beyond the limits of 
His brief career upon the earth and fulfils the 
promise, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto 
the end of the world." 

The Missionary Test 

The question now comes up, Is this Gospel 
the^worid? 1 which Christ realized, for all the world, or is it 
not ? It is well to answer the question, for there 
are those who say, "Christianity was never meant 
to be a world religion. On the contrary, Confu- 
cianism is good for the Chinese ; Hinduism is 
suited to the temperament of the people of In- 
dia; Mohammedanism quite fits the Arab; and 
paganism is possibly best for the African." Pass 
by, for the time, the weakness of a position which 
so completely overlooks the great evils (with 
which non-Christian religions are seamed, that 
it almost seems like saying that "consumption is 
good for a consumptive." Let us ask with seri- 
ousness the question, Is Christianity meant for 
all the world? The question may be asked in this 
chapter because we are dealing with Christ and 
His work. The question may be asked of 
Him as it could not be asked of Abra- 



1 1 Cor. 2:4; Matt. 10 : 19 ; Acts 4 : 29-31. 



CHRIST S PLACE IN GOD S PLAN. IO9 

ham or David or even Isaiah, however good and 
clear their answers might be. Their replies 
would not be final ; they were channels of a par- 
tial revelation ; it might be said that they did not 
know. 41 But Christ's answer is final. He was 
the Word of God. Furthermore, this Christian 
religion derives all its content from Him. He 
came to earth to realize, what a later period was 
to apply. Did Christ lay the foundation for a 
world religion? If He didn't, there is nothing to 
build on. The Period of Application can only 
apply what the Period of Realization has real- 
ized. 48 

The question might be answered by calling at- Yes, Because 

, . ? , , r "\ ,. . Spiritual. 

tention to the spiritual character of the religion 
of Jesus Christ. The spiritual character of our 
Christian religion would thus prove it to be a 
universal religion, for that which is purely spir- 
itual is always capable of world-wide reach. As 
a thoughtful writer has said: "When religion is 
thus carried back to its deepest center, to the fel- 
lowship of man in his heart with God, the separ- 
ating limits of national religions fall away as 
meaningless ; the most inward experience of what 
truly belongs to man can no longer be a privilege 
of one people above the others — it must become 
a thing of the whole of mankind." And another 
writer has built up a strong argument on the su- 

41 Eph. 3: 5. ^See pages 30-31. 



110 GOD'S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

preme place which faith holds in the Christian 
religion as a condition of salvation. This quality 
or act, he says, is "so centrally founded in human 
nature that all men of all races, and all forms 
and degrees of intelligence and civilization are 
capable of it." * 
of es scope. ause Another way of answering the question would 
be by pointing out how frequently in word and 
experience, Jesus Christ went beyond the limits 
of His own race and nation. He does not say, 
"I am the Light of the Jews," but "I am the 
Light of the World" (John 8: 12). "When I 
am in the world," He adds, "I am the Light of 
the World" (John 9:5). His whole life seems 
to have been lived in a world horizon. His temp- 
tations were in that sphere: "The devil taketh 
Him unto an exceeding high mountain, and 
showeth him all the kingdoms of the world" 
(Matt. 4:8). His visions were world visions: 
"I say unto you, that many shall come from the 
east and the west, and shall sit down with Abra- 
ham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of 
heaven" (Matt. 8: 11). His Gospel was to be a 
world Gospel: "This Gospel of the Kingdom 
shall be preached in the whole world" (Matt. 24: 
14). He therefore bade His disciples to live, as 
He did, in a world horizon. "The field," said 
He, "is the world" (Matt. 13: 38). Hie expected 

43 W. D. Mackenzie's "The Final Faith," page 193. 



CHRIST S PLACE IN GOD S PLAN. I J I 

they would experience world-wide persecution in 
the fulfilment of their commission, and so He 
said, "Before governors and kings shall ye be 
brought for My sake, for a testimony to them 
and to the Gentiles" (Matt. 10: 18). In the 
background of His prayer life was this world 
passion: "that the world may believe" (John 17: 

21). 

More significant than these scattered mentions 
of a world purpose in His incarnation, are the 
titles He assumed. How easy and how honor- 
able to have accepted the title "Son of David" 
or "Messiah," which some were ready to give 
to Him. 44 But there was danger of narrowness 
of vision in it. Men might make it refer solely 
to Jewish religious expectations. So He took the 
title "Son of Man," which not only relates Him 
to humanity in general, but lifts Him to a posi- 
tion of lofty power where all race and class dis- 
tinctions are forever lost. 45 

A Threefold Test 

To determine whether Christianity, as founded 
by Jesus Christ, is a world religion, let us ex- 
amine three leading conceptions of this Christian 
faith. 



"John 1: 41. 

45 Matt. 8: 20; 9: 6; 10: 23; 13: 41. 



112 GODS PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

^God? Kind of I. God. There is in Christianity a concep- 
tion of God. What sort of a God does the Chris- 
tian believe in ? The African has a conception of a 
god; he has a god for the lake and another god 
for the river, a god for the plain and another god 
for the mountain, a god for the down-country and 
another god for the up-country. Is that the Chris- 
tian's God — only with a little better and vaster 
knowledge of geography, so that he, too, has a 
god for the West and a god for the East. "No I" 
comes the answer. "Our God is a World God." 
Is that so? Do we realize the price which must 
be paid for such a faith? Do we believe in a 
World God : we must give Him to all the world, 
or we lose this noblest conception of our Chris- 
tian faith. The Christian conception of God 
drives the Church to the ends of the earth in a 
great missionary movement. 

nivioi- 1 ?* ° f 2 - Christ. In Christianity there is also the 
conception of Christ as a Savior. How great a 
Savior is He? It is estimated that to-day about 
one-fifth 46 of the human race has accepted the 
Christian religion. Suppose that the other four- 
fifths of the human race were to receive Christi- 
anity: would Jesus Christ need to come all the 
weary way from Heaven to Calvary to die again 
for these others? "No !" comes the answer. "It 
was an old time preacher who gave us his in- 

46 Some say, one third. 



CHRIST S PLACE IN GOD S PLAN. II^ 

spired testimony that Jesus Christ is 'the propi- 
tiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but 
also for the whole world'." 4r Is that our faith ? 
Then we owe it to Him, if we do not owe it to the 
world, to carry Him to "the whole world" and 
give Him a chance to extend His saving power, 
until He "see of the travail of His soul and shall 
be satisfied." 

3. The Holy Spirit. This is a part of the Re ai Faith. 
Apostles' Creed: "I believe in the Holy Ghost." 
Do w r e believe in the Holy Spirit? How much 
do we believe in Him ? The faith of a Church in 
the Holy Spirit is open to question unless that 
Church be a missionary Church. Let us illus- 
trate our meaning. 

Imagine a visitor going through the Baldwin 
Locomotive Works, the largest locomotive works 
in our land. The guide stops and, pointing to an 
immense engine of the most modern construction, 
he says : "There is the finest piece of machinery 
for pulling that there is in the world. And I 
will now prove it to you." Imagine him going 
aside and getting an express-wagon, one of these 
little express-wagons that the children play with. 
He attaches that to the engine and it pulls it. 
Will the visitor have any adequate conception of 
the power of that locomotive? Rather let the 
train of cars be brought — a great train of mas- 

47 1 John 2:2. 
8 



114 GODS PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

sive steel freight cars, loaded with freight. Let 
the locomotive be attached to that load; let it 
pull that, and then its power will be revealed. 

When we relate our petty lives alone to the 
uplifting influences of the Hjoly Spirit, we do 
not know His power. Let us bring the great 
train of cars, — great national cars, continental 
cars, freighted with a world's need : America, to 
be sure, with her 100,000,000 souls, but Africa, 
too, with her 150,000,000 souls, and India with 
her 300,000,000, and China with her 440,000,000. 
Let us relate that burden of sin and need and 
woe to the uplifting power of the Holy Spirit. 
And when we see Him lift that load in world re- 
demption, we will know how to believe in the 
Holy Spirit. 
Hgion! rld Re " Instead of not being a world religion, the fun- 
damental beliefs of Christianity are such that the 
essence of our faith is lost when Christianity is 
reduced to lower terms than those of a world re- 
ligion. 



CHAPTER V 



World Evangelization 



"All through life I see a Cross, 
Where sons of God yield up their breath: 
There is no gain except by loss, 
There is no life except by death.'' 

— W. C. Smith. 

"Sometimes men write as if the universalism of a 
religion, the quality which makes it a missionary 
religion, were accidental, dependent perhaps upon some 
words of its founder or some phase of thought among 
his followers. But such a view of the matter is, at 
least, inadequate. A religion becomes a missionary 
religion, it attracts believers of various races, it drives 
its preachers forth to various climes, because it contains 
certain doctrines, it deals with certain facts, it aims at 
certain results in which all men are believed to be 
deeply concerned." — W . Douglas Mackenzie. 

"Fear not, we cannot fail; 
The vision must prevail; 
Truth is the oath of God, and sure and fast, 
Through death and hell, holds onward to the last." 



V 

WORLD EVANGELIZATION 

HOW rapid has been the unfolding of the 
divine Plan for World Redemption in 
the Period of Realization which we 
have been considering. That was be- 
cause God had a perfect instrument through 
which to work, His Son. And He worked 
alone. The great events connected with the re- 
alization of Redemption follow therefore in na- 
tural and regular and rapid succession. 

The Incarnation, when in the fulness of the 
time "God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, 
born under the law." 

Then, the Crucifixion, when "in due season, 
Christ died for the ungodly." 

Again, the Resurrection, wherein "this Jesus 
did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses," 
as Peter said on the day of Pentecost. 

Then, the Ascension, whereby Jesus "was 
taken up; and a cloud received him out of their 
sight." 

Finally, Pentecost, when "suddenly there came 
from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a 
mighty wind .... and there appeared 

117 



n8 god's plan for world redemption. 



What Next? 



What it 
Means. 



unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of 
fire." 

How wonderful it all was : the Incarnation, the 
Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and 
Pentecost ! And now, what is next? Yes, what 
comes next? 

How curious the disciples were to know ! And 
they came and spread before their Lord their 
crude Jewish hopes, and said, "Lord, dost Thou 
at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ?" And 
our age, too, is curious, though we think we are 
not quite so crude; and we spread before our 
Lord our hopes, millennial hopes — pre-millennial 
hopes and post-millennial hopes, both kinds, — 
and using a fine phrase of Paul's we say, "Dost 
Thou at this time 'sum up all things in Christ' ? " 
And our Lord brushes aside these questions as 
He says, "No, that is not next. Do you wish to 
know what lies next in the unfolding of the Plan 
for World Redemption? I will tell you: Go ye 
into all the world and preach the Gospel to the 
whole creation. Evangelization is next." 

What does this mean ? It means that the Great 
Commission is not merely a command of Christ. 
It is not merely a great command of Christ. It is 
not merely the greatest command of Christ. It is 
an announcement by the Son of God of that 
which comes next in the unfolding of the divine 
Program for World Redemption. It is the ush- 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION. II9 

ering in of the third great period, — the Period of 
Application. 

Ideal Fulfilment 

There are two ways, however, of interpreting Ye^s? stion ° f 
the Great Commission of Christ. One is to say, 
"Yes, we are now in the Period of Application 
when the Gospel is to be carried to all the 
world. Some nineteen hundred years of this pe- 
riod have already elapsed. Some day the end 
of this period will come, and we will then pass on 
to whatever else there is in the Plan of God." 
This makes God's Plan rest altogether upon the 
element of Time, as if the chief need were to wait 
for a prescribed number of years to elapse, in- 
stead of making God's Plan rest rather upon our 
fulfilment of certain conditions. Such a view is 
tinged with fatalism. It induces inertia by say- 
ing, "God's time has not yet come," instead of 
saying in true apostolic fashion, "Now is the ac-. 
cepted time ; behold now is the day of salvation !" 

The other view is one which takes the words of a Question of 
our Lord literally, and declares that it was His 
Plan that they should hasten to evangelize the 
whole world of their day. The fact that it was 
not done would not disprove that it was His Plan, 
any more than the fact that men do not keep the 
Moral Law would disprove that the Moral Law 
is the will and plan of God for man's conduct. 



Conditions. 



120 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

The Plan of God is not to be discovered 
by looking at human history. The Plan is 
to be discovered in the Book. No matter how 
daring, how ideal this view may seem at first 
sight, are there not reasons for believing that it 
was Christ's Plan? 

He Meant it. First, was this not the evident meaning of 
Christ's command? Did He not say, "Go ye into 
all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole 
creation/' and again, "Ye shall be My witnesses 
both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, 
and unto the uttermost part of the earth." Hu- 
man language is not so clumsy and rigid that it 
should not be capable of conveying adequately 
human thought. Our Lord was surely master of 
the language of His day. When He says, "Go," 
shall we interpret His meaning "Stay"? Does 
"Ye" mean, "Not you, but your descendants of 
the next two millenniums?" Does "All the 
world" means "One-fifth of the world"? Does 
"Preach the Gospel" mean "Enjoy the Gospel"? 
If Christ meant to qualify His statements, could 
He not have done so ? If He did not mean what 
He said, why should He not have said what He 
did mean ? 

They so under- Further, was it not the actual understanding of 
the disciples that their Lord's command laid upon 
them this obligation? We do not say that this ob- 
ligation was universally discharged. It was not. 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION. 121 

But it was an obligation recognized by the 
leaders of the Church and discharged by the ma- 
jority of the Church's members. In the mission- 
ary activity of the early Church, we have one of 
the strongest arguments for missions to be found 
anywhere. One of the greatest authorities on the 
history of the early Church says, "It was not 
merely the confessors and martyrs who were mis- 
sionaries. It was characteristic of this religion 
that every one who seriously confessed the faith, 
proved of service to its propaganda." And of the 
rapid spread of Christianity, he gives this sum- 
mary, "Seventy years after the foundation of the 
very first Gentile Christian Church in Syrian An- 
tioch, Pliny wrote in the strongest terms about 
the spread of Christianity throughout remote Bi- 
thynia, a spread which in his view already threat- 
ened the stability of other cults throughout the 
province. Seventy years later still, the paschal 
controversy reveals the existence of a Christian 
federation of churches, stretching from Lyons 
to Edessa, with its headquarters situated at 
Rome. Seventy years later, again, the emperor 
Decius declared he would sooner have a rival 
emperor in Rome than a Christian bishop. And 
ere another seventy years had passed, the cross 
was sewed upon the Roman colors." This spread 
of Christianity was not accidental. If miracu- 
lous, yet was it based on human agency. The 



122 GOD'S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



It Needed to 
be Done. 



Is it Impos- 
sible? 



missionary zeal which brought it about, had its 
anchorage in the understanding which the early 
disciples had of their Lord's command. 

Again, was not such speedy evangelization 
logically — theologically, if yon please — required, 
to make effective Christ's work of atonement 
wrought out upon Calvary? The atonement of 
Christ does not work automatically. To become 
effective in individual salvation, it must be be- 
lieved; therefore must it be heard; therefore 
must it be preached. Immediate and complete 
world evangelization was necessary, unless the 
greater portion of the human race were to be 
deliberately excluded from redemption. If 
Christ's heart yearned for the salvation of the 
world of His own day, His command must have 
been intended to urge upon His disciples the an- 
nouncement of His Gospel to that world. What 
was logically necessary must have been also com- 
manded. 

Once more, is Christ's Plan according to this 
view so impossible? In his book, "The Key to the 
Missionary Problem," Andrew Murray speaks of 
a mathematical diagram that was worked out 
based on the supposition that there were in the 
world to-day just one Christian, just one; that 
this Christian was a true Christian, that is, a 
missionary Christian ; that he lived and worked a 
whole year dominated by a missionary passion; 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION. 1 23 

that at the end of a whole year this man suc- 
ceeded in bringing to Christ one other soul. At 
the end of the first year there would be two 
Christians. Then imagine each man going out 
the second year dominated by that missionary 
purpose, and each man bringing another to 
Christ. At the end of the second year there 
would be four. Now, keeping up this law of rea- 
sonable progress, how long do you imagine it 
would be before the world would be brought to 
Christ? 

At the end of 1 year 2 

At the end of 2 years . 4 

At the end of 3 years 8 

At the end of 4 years 16 

At the end of 5 years 32 

At the end of 6 years 64 

At the end of 7 years 128 

At the end of 8 years 256 

At the end of 9 years 512 

At the end of 10 years 1,024 

At the end of 1 1 years 2,048 

At the end of 12 years 4,096 

At the end of 13 years 8,192 

At the end of 14 years 16,384 

At the end of 15 years 32,768 

At the end of 16 years 65,536 

At the end of 17 years 131,072 

At the end of 18 years 262,144 

At the end of 19 years 524,288 

At the end of 20 years 1,048,576 

At the end of 21 years 2,097,152 



124 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

At the end of 22 years 4,194,304 

At the end of 23 years 8,388,608 

At the end of 24 years 16,777,216 

At the end of 25 years 33,554432 

At the end of 26 years 67,108,864 

At the end of 27 years 134,217,728 

At the end of 28 years 268,635,456 

At the end of 29 years 537,270,912 

At the end of 30 years 1,074,541,824 

At the end of 31 years 2,149,083,648 

Between thirty and thirty-one years, even in 
our day when the earth's population is supposed 
to be so much larger than in the days of Christ ! 
What seems so possible, on the basis of ordinary 
faithfulness, may we not believe that Christ com- 
manded ? 
They Nearly Still again, did not the disciples of the first 
three centuries come near to doing this very 
thing? They almost fulfilled their Lord's com- 
mand to disciple all nations. We are quite fa- 
miliar with the spread of Christianity northward 
and westward chiefly through the missionary la- 
bors of Paul. The Epistles and the Book of Acts 
acquaint us with that movement. But we are 
prone to forget that this was only one of the sev- 
eral missionary movements characterizing that 
first century. While Paul was laboring at Anti- 
och, the Christian religion was establishing itself 
at Alexandria. It spread up the Nile, to the First 
Cataract, past the First Cataract into Nubia of to- 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION. 12$ 

day, past the Second Cataract into what is now 
the Egyptian Sudan. It spread over into Abys- 
sinia and established a Christian kingdom there. 
The full results of the extension of Christianity 
into these parts are not matters of historical re- 
cord until a later century, when they burst into 
view fully matured, but their beginnings belong 
clearly to the very earliest times. 

Nor was this all, for another movement fol- In *° Africa, 
lowed the northern coast of Africa westward and 
carried the Gospel to the "pillars of Hercules," 
possessing the northern seaboard of Africa in the 
name of Christ. 

Still other movements went eastward through Into India - 
Persia, and at least as far as India. In his re- 
cent work, "A History of Missions in India/' 
Richter has marshaled abundant proof of the 
early entrance of Christianity into India. If 
then, the Christians of the first centuries came so 
near to fulfilling literally the command of their 
Lord in the evangelization of the world, may we 
not well believe that what they accomplished, 
their Lord commanded, and more? 

But let these arguments suffice. If this was the p la ^ as His 
thought of Christ, as it was also His command 
to His disciples, that thus, speedily, the world 
should be evangelized, what profound sugges- 
tions arise from the question, "What if the early 
Church had fully and perfectly fulfilled her Lord's 



126 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

will?" Does there not come a thrill of sublime 
imagining of what it would have meant to this 
world, to these millenniums of human history, to 
us, if a wholly obedient Church had allowed God 
to pass quickly and at once to His Great Next in 
the further unfolding of the divine program of 
world redemption. 
a Parable. This then was the Master's ideal Plan. There 

is a beautiful picture portrayed by Mr. S. D. Gor- 
don, in one of his "Quiet Talks/' which sets 
forth clearly the thought of Jesus Christ for His 
disciples and Church, and the Plan by which He 
expected the salvation which He Himself 
brought, to be extended and applied to human 
life everywhere. 

"The Master is walking with Gabriel, talking 
intently, earnestly. Gabriel is saying: 'Master, 
you died for the whole world down there, did you 
not?' 'Yes.' 'You must have suffered much,' 
with an earnest look into that great face. 'Yes/ 
again comes the answer in a wondrous voice, very 
quiet but strangely full of deepest feeling. 'And 
do they all know about it ?' 'Oh, no ; only a few 
in Palestine know about it so far.' 'Well, Mas- 
ter, what is your Plan? What have you done 
about telling the world that you have died for 
them? What is your Plan?' 

" 'Well/ the Master is supposed to answer, 'I 
asked Peter and James and John, and little Scotch 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION. 127 

Andrew, and some more of them down there, just 
to make it the business of their lives to tell others, 
and the others others, and yet others, and still 
others, until the last man in the farthest circle has 
heard the story, and has felt the thrilling and the 
thralling power of it.' 

"And Gabriel knows us folks down here pretty 
well. He has had more than one contact with the 
earth. He knows the kind of stuff that is in us. 
And he is supposed to answer, with a sort of 
hesitating reluctance, as though he could see dif- 
ficulties in the working of the Plan, 'Yes — but — 
suppose Peter fails. Suppose after a while John 
simply does not tell others. Suppose their de- 
scendants, their successors away off in the first 
edge of the twentieth century, get so busy about 
things — some of them proper — that they do not 
tell others, what then?' And his eyes are big 
with the intenseness of his thought, for he is 
thinking of the suffering, and he is thinking, too, 
of the difference to the man who hasn't been told, 
—'What then?' 

"And back comes that quiet, wondrous voice of 
Jesus, 'Gabriel, I haven't made any other plans, — 
I'm counting on them,'" 

The New Testament Church 

The New Testament gives us some extended 
record of the life of the early Church during 



128 god's plan for world redemption. 



A Beautiful 
Picture. 



Days of the 
Miraculous. 



three decades, from Pentecost to the last impris- 
onment of Paul. How faithfully did the Church 
fulfil the will of her Lord? 

It is a beautiful picture of a beautiful life which 
we find in the early pages of the Book of Acts. 
The story should be read in its entirety just as 
Luke, the beloved physician, has sketched it. 
Only a few distinctive characteristics of that life 
can be referred to here. 

It was a company of people who lived in an at- 
mosphere of supernahiralism. They expected the 
extraordinary to happen and they experienced the 
extraordinary. There was an other-worldliness 
about their life that made the spiritual world very 
real. They were not lacking in real human na- 
ture, but for all that, just beyond a thin veil which 
enveloped human life here on earth, there was a 
spirit world, there were spiritual forces, there 
was a Living Lord. And out of that unseen 
world, gracious influences and experiences were 
all the time streaming, enriching their human 
life upon the earth. As we read the story of those 
days, as we see in what a matter-of-fact way 
they spoke to their Risen Lord in prayer and 
praise, as we listen to words unfolding the deep- 
est spiritual truth and dealing with the profound- 
est spiritual realities, spoken too by men who 
were neither poets nor philosophers nor theolo- 
gians, we are compelled to realize that the very 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION. 129 

atmosphere of life was to them surcharged with 
the supernatural. 

Life also was full of joy. They were so glad. 1 Great Giad- 
We do not need to ask why. It was the gladness 
of forgiveness, the joy of newness of life, the 
sense of the sufficiency of the Savior. They were 
all apostles of glad news, good tidings. And their 
gladness was not only over the past; it reached 
into the future and became a great expectancy. 3 

Life also was marked by love. They had fel- wonderful 
lowship with each other. 3 They broke bread to- 
gether,* and after these love feasts they some- 
times united in observing the Lord's Supper to ex- 
press their love for Him. Their love led some of 
them to volunteer to give their wealth for the 
good of all, but this was not a law ; it was only a 
privilege in which those could indulge who de- 
sired. 

Their lives were also given up to much prayer. Mucn Prayer. 
They went generally to the daily prayers in the 
Temple. It would be a natural place to gather 
because their Lord had so often taught there, 5 and 
it would be more spacious for a company which 
quickly numbered several thousand. It is not to 
be thought that they gave up their daily tasks or 
livelihood, but yet they found much time for 
prayer, and fellowship, and instruction, and wor- 

1 Acts 2 : 46. * Acts 2 : 42, 46. 

2 Acts 3 : 19-21. 5 John 10 : 23. 
•Acts 2: 42. 

9 



130 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

ship, and — one more thing which needs also to be 
recognized, 
constantly They were constantly witnessing for their faith. 

This was not so much formal preaching, as talk- 
ing about their faith and their Lord. It was this 
that got them into trouble. 6 But it was this wit- 
nessing also, which the Holy Spirit used mightily, 
and we read of vast numbers being added to them 
of those who believed. 7 "It is safe to say, from 
various expressions used in Acts (5: 14; 6: 7), 
that in the three or four years following Pente- 
cost the number converted on that day was 
trebled. Perhaps even a larger estimate may be 
allowed. Nor need we suppose that believers 
were confined to Jerusalem. The movement na- 
turally spread into Judea and Galilee, and it is 
probable that it penetrated farther. A little later 
we hear of disciples in Damascus (Acts 9: 2, 10) 
and other foreign cities (26: 11), and this diffu- 
sion of the faith must have begun early. It woulcf 
appear that at least the Jews of Syria were af- 
fected, and it is not impossible that the new Gos- 
pel was carried still more widely throughout 'the 
dispersion' by visitors to the feasts and by other 
Jewish travelers." 8 

The Gospel of a Person 

Most significant is the Gospel, which the early 

6 Acts 4: 1, 2, 17-21. 

7 Acts 2:*47; 4 : 4, 33 ; 5 : 14 ; 6 : 7. 

8 G. T. Purves's "The Apostolic Age," page 47. 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION. I3I 

disciples are portrayed as proclaiming. It is not 
stated formally, but it keeps finding expression at 
every turn. Their Gospel was a Gospel of a Per- 
son, and that person was Christ. 

Before Christ's Ascension, the disciples had 
traveled a long distance in their faith in Christ. 
Perhaps the road which their thoughts took in ar- 
riving at their faith in Christ, would be somewhat 
as follows: 

"Is He a good man or is He a bad man? Some How Faith 

° . Grew. 

speak well of Him, some speak otherwise.*' "He 
is a good man." 9 "He also possesses unusual 
gifts : of character, of miracle-working power, 10 of 
spiritual knowledge." u "Clearly God is with 
Him." 3a "Perhaps He bears some unusual di- 
vine commission. Could He be a prophet?" 13 
"Perhaps He is the prophesied Elijah." 14 "Can 
He be the Messiah?" 15 "But He died." "Yes, 
but He rose again." "He is the Messiah." 16 

And now since Christ's Ascension two new con- He is Alive, 
ceptions dominated their life and thought, (i) 
Jesus is still alive. So the writer of the Acts re- 
fers to his Gospel as describing that which "Jesus 
began both to do and teach," clearly implying that 
in the Acts he is going to set forth that which this 
Living Lord continued to do through the Holy 

9 John 7: 12. 1S John 7: 40. 

10 John 7 : 31. M Luke 9 : 19. 

11 John 3: 45, 46. 15 John 7: 26. 
ia John 9: 33. 16 Luke 9: 20. 



132 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

Spirit and by the lives of His disciples" The 
great proof that Jesus was still alive up yonder 
beyond the veil which cut heaven off from human 
vision, was the fact that out of that unseen world 
had come, according to His promise, this gift of 
the Holy Spirit. 18 Furthermore, miracles still con- 
tinued to be wrought in His name. 19 If He is 
alive, then He is to be consulted in all matters for 
guidance. 29 His presence may yet be manifested 
occasionally. 81 Being alive, He will yet come 
again. 21 
sentative pre " ( 2 ) ^ esus ^ as been made God's representative 

in all things.™ Therefore He is the theme of all 
preaching. 14 Everything depends on accepting 
Him and being accepted by Him. 25 God has 
transferred to Him all authority. 18 Faith is now 
to be exercised toward Him. 27 All approach to 
God the Father is to be made through Him, for 
God the Father has appointed this Jesus as the 
only way of approach ; * this is done, not to shut 
men off, but to make the approach more perfect 
and more possible. And all that man needs, can 
be found in Him: leadership, power, guidance, 
forgiveness. And He is to be the Judge and the 

17 Acts 1:1- 24 Acts 2 : 22 ; 3 : 13 ; 

18 Acts 2: 33. 4 : 10 ; 5 : 20, 31, 40, 42. 

19 Acts 3 : 6, 16 ; 4 : 10 ; 9 : 34. 25 Acts 2 : 38. 

20 Acts 1: 24. 28 Acts 2: 36. 
31 Acts 7 : 56 ; 9 : 5. 27 Acts 3 : 16. 
23 Acts 1: 11. ^Acts 4: 12. 
23 Acts 2: 36. 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION. 1 33 

Restorer in days to come. 89 Since He is all of 
this, He can be none other than God also. He is 
the Son of God. 30 Following such conceptions as 
these, the Jewish convert to the Christian faith 
found that all His former thought of Jehovah 
and his longed-for relations with God, were trans- 
ferred to Christ, with this further difference, that 
what had been an unrealized hope or an imper- 
fectly realized relationship before, now found per- 
fect realization in and through Jesus Christ. 

Days of Persecution 

It was not long before the infant Church was Early perse- 
called upon to endure persecution. This persecu- 
tion first came from the Sadducees. This was 
the party that was in chief control of the Temple 
administration. It was not altogether to their 
liking that a new leadership should develop, such 
as that exercised by the apostles, with so great an 
influence over the people : 31 here was the motive 
of envy. Neither was the doctrine of the resur- 
rection at all to their liking, 3 * for they were de- 
niers of all resurrection : here was the motive of 
intellectual pride. Neither did they enjoy being 
constantly reminded of their responsibility in the 
death of Christ : 33 here were the movings of a 

29 Acts 3 : 20, 21 ; 6 : 14 ; 10 : 42. 

89 Acts 9: 20. 32 Acts 4: 2. 

81 Acts 4: 2. 23 Acts 5: 28. 



134 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

guilty conscience. Nor, finally, did they approve 
of this spiritual Gospel which belittled Temple 
and Law, and foretold the destruction of the Tem- 
ple. To the Sadducees were soon added other 
critics and opposers of the Christian faith. The 
leaders of the Church were arrested, they were 
lectured, they were warned, they were impris- 
oned, they were beaten, 34 and withal they only 
grew bolder in their proclamation of their faith 
a crisis. in Jesus Christ. At last matters came to a crisis. 

Stephen, one of the seven deacons, with a holy 
boldness and a clear discernment of the implica- 
tions of the new faith, went even beyond the rest 
in pressing home the application of the Gospel 
of Christ. They dragged him to a semi-legal 
trial. There he renewed his presentation of the 
new faith. With wonderful skill he sketched the 
nation's history and unfolded the divine Plan 
for World Redemption. Then he showed that, 
again and again, this Plan had been carried for- 
ward only by the faithful few, while the chosen 
race as a whole had been disobedient to its call 
and opposed to its gracious appointments. Then 
he charged upon them and their present attitude 
the sinful spirit of their fathers. "The prisoner, 
who began in self-defence, ends by hurling at his 
judges the most audacious charges. At this point 
a howl of execration from mouths which clashed 

84 Acts 4: 1-21; 5: 17-40. 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION. I35 

with rage drowned the voice of the accuser. 
Stephen paused ; his face changed again ; the tu- 
mult died. From the instant he heard that cry 
which told him the end was come, he ceased from 
rebukes which wrought no penitence but only- 
rage. He fell back from men whom he could not 
save, upon the Master for Whom he still could 
speak. The glory of God bathed him with its 
light. The old radiance stole back again upon H is Face, 
his countenance, when, 

1 — looking upward, full of grace 
He prayed, and from a happy place 
God's glory smote him on the face/ 

At last he spoke, 'Behold^ I see the heavens 
opened and the Son of Man standing on the right 
hand of God.' That hated name let loose the tide 
of rage which awe had for a moment frozen, and, 
with illegal tumult, councillors and bystanders, 
turned through their passion into a mob, swept 
him from the chamber with a rush and hurried 
him for execution beyond the northern city 
gate." 35 "And the witnesses laid down their 
garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 
. . . . And Saul was consenting unto his 
death." 36 

Thus was accomplished the first martyrdom of First Martyr, 
this Period of Evangelization. Thus was set 

85 J. O. Dykes's "Prom Jerusalem to Antioch." 
88 Acts 7: 58-8; 1. 



136 god's plan for world redemption. 



The Seed of 
the Church. 



Scattered. 



forth the truth, which the Church in some ages 
has so bravely accepted, in other ages has so 
craven-heartedly avoided: that as Christ laid 
down life for world redemption, the Church, 
His body, must lay down life for world evangeli- 
zation. Sin would indeed be a weak force in the 
world, if it surrendered its kingdom without a 
mortal conflict. 

Thus also was early witness borne to the con- 
quering power of a witness unto death, which 
makes "the blood of the martyrs to become the 
seed of the Church." One in that crowd became 
a mightier missionary of the Cross than Stephen 
himself, but the credit belongs to Stephen and to 
Christ. 

Thus also was accomplished a great turning 
movement in the development of the early 
Church. Of the missionary spirit of the early 
disciples there is abundant proof. But had they 
lacked initiative in not moving away from Jerusa- 
lem? Were their horizons of God's will and pur- 
poses too circumscribed? Had they grown un- 
mindful, as it is so easy to do, of the rest of the 
Commission, as they labored to fulfil the first 
part of it, "Ye shall be my witnesses in Jerusa- 
lem"? Be that as it may, their Living Leader 
Who guides by His Holy Spirit the willing hearts 
of men, but Who also disposes by His providences 
of even human unwillingness, He it was, Who 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION. l$J 

wrought by persecution to make a foreign mis- 
sionary of the early disciple whose spirit was 
willing indeed, but whose flesh may have been 
weak. The record tells us, that "they were all 
scattered abroad and throughout the regions of 
Judea and Samaria, except the apostles" (Acts 
8: i). 



CHAPTER VI 



The Missionary Movement 



"At last, the Christ ! Men's hearts are thrilled ! 
Lo, now the plan will be fulfilled! 
Yet still the years their cycles run, 
And still Thy work seems scarce begun. 

"Then swiftly in one century's hour 
Jehovah bares His arm with power, 
Flings wide the gates in ancient lands, 
From fettered millions breaks the bands; 

"Bids learning, statecraft, science, gold, 
Arise and speed His purpose old; 
Inspires new heralds, wings their feet, 
Arms them with faith all foes to meet. 

"Almighty Father, Savior, Friend ! 
In awe before Thy sway we bend; 
Empower our souls to read aright 
These tokens of Thy love and might; 

"To see converging everywhere 
The answer to our daily prayer : 
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, 
In every land by every one." 

— "American Board Centennial Hymn," 
by Frances /. Dyer. 



VI 
THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

THE missionary movement had already been 
well launched by the "home missionary" 
efforts of the Jerusalem Christians. In 
the ordinary providence of God, visits of 
merchants and pilgrims, of travelers and colon- 
ists, to Jerusalem, had resulted in an extension of 
the new faith even to Damascus, illustrating the 
truth which is set forth in the popular missionary 
epigram of to-day, that "the light that shines 
brightest at home, shines farthest abroad." 

Persecution now increased many fold the num- How n Spread - 
ber of missionaries. A wonderful work of grace 
was wrought in Samaria. 1 An Ethiopian govern- 
ment official went back to Africa a joyful believer 
in the Christ of whom the prophet spoke.' The 
Gospel was preached throughout Judea, and Gali- 
lee, and Samaria, with such power that the body 
of Christians could be referred to as the Church 
in these sections. 8 

Now comes an event which proved epoch-mak- ^iracfe 1 * 7 
ing in the history of the Christian missionary 
movement. Saul, the persecutor, is converted to 

1 Acts 8: 4-25. 2 Acts 8: 26-39. 3 Acts 9: 31. 

141 



142 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

the faith for whose extinction he had labored. 
"That blessed war of aggression which Jesus 
Christ wages upon the evil world is a war which 
is made to maintain itself. Christ's soldiers are 
His captured enemies. Every soul won from re- 
sistance to the Cross is marked at once with the 
Cross-badge, and sent into the field to win others. 
Of this, the most notable instance in history is 
the conversion of Saul. Jesus Christ never en- 
countered a bitterer or an abler foe ; Jesus Christ 
never won a mightier captain for His army of 
light." 
The Man's To take the measurement of this man's man- 

Call. 

hood would require a whole book of biography. 
To take the measurement of this man's message 
would require a work on theology. There is 
space here only for a glance at his missionary 
call, (i) It was a call which came with conver- 
sion, as indeed should be the case with every 
Christian. Enlistment in missionary service is 
not an exceptional experience belonging to the 
few, or to some advanced stage of the Christian 
life. It is a common duty of every Christian 
commoner. (2) Paul's call was to world-wide 
missionary service. It was to go before Gentiles, 
before royalty, and before his own people.* (3) 
It was a call to hardship. 5 Why not? Shall the 
service of Self claim effort and struggle, and the 

* Acts 9 : 15 ; 26 : 17. 5 Acts 9 : 16. 



THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. I43 

service of Christ claim only ease and conveni- 
ence? 

This man, thus called, was the mightiest single a Tireless 

. . Worker. 

impulse which God gave to that early Christian 
movement. The narrative of his labors will be 
found in separate treatises. 6 But from Damascus 
to Arabia, from Arabia to Jerusalem, from Jeru- 
salem to Tarsus, from Tarsus to the country 
round about, then to Antioch, and then on a mis- 
sionary journey which took him through Tarsus, 
Perga, Pisidia, Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and 
Derbe, — thus did this restless missionary leader, 
restless only in his passion for Christ's Kingdom, 
journey about during the first fifteen years of his 
Christian life. 

The Anti-Missionary Spirit 

It is the year 50 A. D. Two decades have Farther sun 
passed since Pentecost. The missionary fires have 
been burning steadily, and the Christian faith 
has spread surprisingly. It is in Jerusalem, 
where it started, but it has also reached to Sa- 
maria ; it has traversed Palestine ; it has reached 
Caesarea and won Cornelius; it has crossed the 
water to Cyprus ; it is in Tarsus and at Antioch ; 
it has been carried into several provinces of Asia 
Minor; perhaps it is in Rome. From a geogra- 

6 Parrar's "Life and Work of St. Paul," Speer's "The Man 
Paul." 



144 god's plan for world redemption. 



A Supreme 
Issue. 



A Great Vic- 
tory. 



phical point of view, there seems no ground for 
criticism. But the stream has run narrow, if it 
has run deep and far. There are those in the 
Christian camp who would limit Christianity to 
the Jewish race. "Within those limits it had its 
origin/' they say, "within those limits let it 
abide." Their utmost concession is that it shall 
be offered to Gentiles who will agree, when they 
accept Christianity, to accept also the observ- 
ance of the Jewish law. A great issue is at stake. 
Missions are at stake. Nay, Christianity itself is 
at stake. But it is Missions that will make the 
issue clear, and it is Missions that will forge the 
weapons of defence, and it is Missions which will 
furnish the great defenders of the faith, and it is 
Missions which will win — win the battle for 
World Christianity. The story of the Great 
Council, called to settle the question, is narrated 
in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts. To the ques- 
tion, "Is the Jewish law binding upon the Gen- 
tile?" it answered explicitly and emphatically 
"No." To the question, "Is the observance of the 
Jewish law a ground of salvation with the Jew ?" 
it answered implicitly, "No." 

It was a great victory. Paul had a great hand 
in it. So did Peter and James. But the Holy 
Spirit Himself stood back of all these, and 
wrested victory out of defeat. Christianity was 
saved. Missions were justified. 



THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. I45 

Farther Expansion 

Freed from the bondage of Judaism, Christi- ^**}5 for the 
anity stood ready to be applied universally. To 
be sure, most Jewish Christians held fast to the 
Jewish ritual, and others even urged that "it was 
better" that Gentiles should adhere to it too, but 
the Council at Jerusalem gave the right of way 
to a Christianity unhampered by Jewish ritual. 
Into the work of extending the faith thus set 
free from encumbrances, Paul flung himself with 
a devotion which took no measure of itself, but 
took notice only of the greatness of the love of 
Christ and of the magnitude of the task to be 
performed. Had Paul's hardships been endured 
by a soldier fighting for his country, immortal 
fame would have been his meed. Paul scarcely 
thinks them worthy of mention. " Tis nothing/' what Matter \ 
he says, "the love of Christ constraineth me." 
Thus he passes on to greater sacrifices, that 
through them he may attain to greater useful- 
ness. More than once, yes, five times, his back 
is bared to the Jewish lash and thrice to the Ro- 
man lictor's rods. In the middle of his career, 
Paul makes incidental reference to shipwrecks, 
three in number, besides a perilous night and day 
spent on the deep. He cannot stop to count the 
times he was led as a common prisoner to the 
public jail. At times indeed the heroic spirit 
10 



146 god's plan for world redemption. 

seems to give way. He speaks of "tears, and 
trembling, and desolation of heart, and utter rest- 
lessness." Then recovering strength, he flings 
himself once more into his work, bemoaning his 
weakness only for this reason, lest through it the 
cause of Christ should be hindered. Let men call 
him mad, if they will only accept the Christ he 
presents. Let men hold him in utter contempt, if 
only they will admire the Christ of whom he 
speaks. Antioch with its outlying districts, Pam- 
phylia, Galatia, Macedonia, Greece, Eastern Asia 
with its great metropolis Ephesus, have all been 
To the Regions occupied for Christ. Paul's face is set toward 

Beyond. 

Italy and Rome. Persecution itself lends a hand 
to carry out his missionary purpose. The Ro- 
man government pays his passage to Rome. Paul 
goes in chains. At last comes the end. Our sur- 
vey has scarcely allowed a sentence for every 
year of sacrifice, and scarcely a word for every 
form of suffering. What matter! Paul himself 
passes these by. Chains and imprisonment? 
They are not worth a thought. Sacrifices ? Nay, 
that is the wrong word: "This service is a privi- 
lege; the love of Christ constraineth me." In the 
gloom of a Roman dungeon and with his long 
day's work almost done, Paul pens our last mes- 
sage from him. Looking back over the thirty 
years of his life which he had poured out so un- 
stintingly as a libation to his Lord, not a thought 



THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. I47 

of regret suggests itself. Only satisfaction! It 
was worth while. "Henceforth there is laid up 
for me, a crown of righteousness," he says, "which 
the Lord, the Righteous Judge, will give me at 
that day." Then, disclaiming the thought that 
he had done any more than others too would be 
impelled to do by that same constraining love of 
Christ, he adds, "And not to me only, but unto 
all them that love His appearing." 

Thus we come to the end of this man's life of The End. 
service, this man who was the great Missionary 
Apostle. Of the other apostles and their labors 
we know but little. A tradition, interesting to 
those laboring in the Nile Valley, is the one 
which asserts that Peter, with Mark, founded 
the Christian Church in Egypt. But our eyes 
should not be fixed only upon the great leaders 
of the Church. Much of the most effective work 
can be traced to the missionary labors of the rank 
and file. A small taper may light a great flame, 
and indeed may be carried far afield when a bon- 
fire cannot even be lifted. The New Testament 
narrative gives many evidences of the labors of 
these obscure missionaries. 7 

How varied were the forms of carrying to the Auluences, 
world the Gospel of redemption through Christ: Places - 
formal preaching, formal teaching, public debate, 



T Acts 9: 10, 25, 31; 11: 19-21; 13: 1; 18: 22; 19: 1; 

28: 14, 15. 



148 god's plan for world redemption. 

personal work, praise and gladness, prayer, mira- 
cles, discipline, official organization, the endur- 
ance of persecution, and martyrdom itself. How 
varied, too, are the audiences recorded: gather- 
ings at the public Sabbath service, group meet- 
ings on other days, Jews, Samaritans, a royal 
treasurer, a Roman officer, city magistrates, Greek 
philosophers, governors and their wives. How 
varied, too, are the places in which this testimony 
for Christ is given : the Temple, the synagogues, 
the streets, court-rooms, both ecclesiastical and 
civil, the riverside, the theater, the school, pri- 
vate homes, the public jail, and on shipboard. 
centu™ rd ° f During the last third of the first century of the 
Christian era, Christianity continued to spread 
rapidly. "Our information is scanty, but there 
can be no doubt about the fact. We have already 
noted its wide dififusion in the last years of Paul. 
That it entered Egypt with much power is proved 
by the remains of early Christian literature in that 
land from early in the second century. There is 
also reason to believe that it entered Arabia and 
Parthia, and possibly India, as well as, in the west, 
Germany and Gaul. It touched Spain and per- 
haps Britain; while throughout the central parts 
of the empire it had its adherents in every coun- 
try. The language of the Revelation (e. g., 7: 
9) implies that the new faith included represen- 
tatives from all nations. Clement of Rome (A. 



THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. I49 

D. 96) refers to the apostles as 'preaching every- 
where in city and country/ Ignatius (A. D. 
no) writes of 'bishops settled in the farthest 
parts (of the earth)/ Pliny, governor of Bith- 
ynia and Pontus in A. D.112, found the Christians 
so numerous that the worship of the temples had 
severely suffered. It is probable that by the close 
of the century companies of believers existed in 
all the larger cities and many of the smaller 
towns of the empire, and that the new religion 
was represented from the Atlantic to the Indus, 
and from Germany to Egypt and Arabia/' 8 

Two Centuries of Heroism* 

The second and third centuries of the Chris- Persecution 

. and Heroism. 

tian era might well be described as centuries of 
heroism, because of the noble devotion, not of all, 
nor of the majority perhaps, but of so very many 
members of the Church of Christ. It was a mis- 
sionary period. It was also a period of persecu- 
tion. It was this that made the missionary zeal 
of the Christians of this period the more note- 
worthy. "On the Roman roads built for mili- How They 

J b Went. 

tary expeditions, down the current of strange riv- 
ers, into forest recesses, into the thick of city life 
where the convention of culture and the cruelties 
of paganism offered bitter welcome, they went 



s G. T. Purves's "The Apostolic Age," page 295*. 



I50 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

forward to their destiny, evermore dreamers who 
made the dream come true. Their lot was not an 
easy one. They were accused of atrocious 
crimes; lampooned; cursed; charged with trea- 
son; outlawed by the judges; and sent to the 
stake, when a single word of acknowledgment of 
the divinity of the emperor would have ensured 
their liberty. Juvenal may have been an eye- 
witness of the carnival in Nero's gardens when 
he tells how 

'At the stake they shine, 
Who stand with throat transfixed, and smoke and burn/ 

Their veins might supply rivers with bloody 
tides; their only honor be the accusation of 
shameful deeds ; their homes be dens ; their faith 
in Jesus be called 'atheism/ and the lion's maw 
their goal ; but even so they went smilingly for- 
ward — to victory. 
Girls as Weil "Tender girls joined stalwart men in the 

as Men. , 1 T r ^ 

march to the grave. In one of the persecutions 
through which the early Church rose to more 
vigorous life, a number of martyrs suffered in 
Carthage, among whom were two young women, 
Perpetua and Felicitas. All the prisoners were 
condemned to fight with the wild beasts on the 
birthday of the Caesar. One of the martyrs, 
Saturus, was speedily released from life by the 
bite of a leopard. Perpetua and Felicitas were 



THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. 151 

put into a net and exposed to a wild cow. On 
her hair and dress becoming disarranged, Per- 
petua quietly reordered them, modest to the last. 
Being about to receive the death-blow, Perpetua 
called to the soldier, Pudens, 'Be strong, and 
think of my faith, and let not all this make thee 
waver, but strengthen thee/ They greeted one 
another with the kiss of peace, and were slain 
with daggers. When the gladiator came near 
who was to kill Perpetua, his hand trembled. She 
took his hand, guided it to her throat, and died 
as calmly as if falling asleep. It needed no pro- 
phet to tell the future of such assurance, for the 
endurance of the Christians wore out the hate of 
the heathens. No efforts at annihilation could 
prevail when love had armed the sufferer for the 
conflict. The executioner might behead the 
Bishop Sixtus in the Catacombs, and scatter his 
blood on the spot where he had just celebrated 
the Lord's Supper, and four days later roast his 
deacon Laurentius in an iron chair — the victory 
of the truth was sure to fall to those who loved it 
sincerely." ' 

As a result of this missionary devotion we find General sum- 

. mary. 

Christianity well established in Cappadocia. Ar- 
menia is officially a Christian country. In Bith- 
ynia, the imperial court itself is full of Christians. 

9 R. T. Stevenson's "The Missionary Interpretation of His- 
tory," page 25. 



152 god's plan for world redemption. 

There are frequent references to Christians in 
the central provinces of Asia Minor. The north- 
western section of Asia Minor is well occupied 
by the new faith, as are also the north and northr- 
west coasts of the Black Sea. Of course, Italy 
and Greece have been entered, and Christianity 
has moved northward past Upper Italy, and has 
at least reached into Gaul, Belgium, Germany. 
Northern Africa is a stronghold of Christianity, 
with over a hundred bishoprics. Even England 
has been touched, for in 316 A. D. there are three 
bishops, from London, York and Lincoln, who 
attend the synod of Aries. It was a wonderful 
record, and contrasts sharply with the record of 
succeeding periods. 

Eclipse of the Missionary Ideal 

church and I n f X2 / \, Constantine became master of the 

State. *j *j> 

whole Roman world. His reign marks an epoch 
in the history of Christianity, for Constantine 
was the first Christian emperor. In his day 
Christianity was made the Empire's religion, and 
Church and State joined hands. But what the 
Church gained in political prestige, she lost in 
spiritual power. The causes of spiritual decline 
are too many to be enumerated here.- The out- 
workings of that downward movement call for 
a survey of more than a millennium of Church 



THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. 153 

history. We would not disparage the missionary 
labors of the faithful few, of the "remnant" of 
the new Israel, of the spiritual Church within the £J}c^ Faithful 
visible Church. If opportunity permitted, it 
would be well to measure anew the noble efforts 
put forth from time to time to carry the Gospel 
to the "regions beyond." We should tell how 
Succat (St. Patrick, as he is better known), heard 
the call of Ireland, "We must entreat thee, holy 
youth, to come and walk among us." Of the 
work which he and his fellow-laborers accom- 
plished, Maclear says, "At a time when clan 
feuds and bloodshed were rife, and princes rose 
and fell, and all was stormy and changeful, they 
had covered the island with monastic schools, 
where the Scriptures were studied, ancient books 
collected and read, and native missionaries trained 
for their own country, and for the remotest parts 
of the European continent." All of this before 
the close of the fifth century. 

We should tell the story of Ulfilas, the apostle £j£j£ B the 
of the Goths (318-388 A. D.). Then the story of 
missions would carry us back to the British, and 
we would speak of Columbia, Columbanus and 
Gallus, of Gregory the Great and the missionary 
St. Augustine. We should speak, too, of Boni- 
face and how he carried the Gospel through the 
land that is now Germany. 

We should then speak of Anskar, who labored 



154 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



Three Barren 
Centuries. 



The Reforma- 
tion. 



among the fierce sea-kings of Jutland and Swe- 
den in the middle of the ninth century; and of 
Cyrillus and Methodius, who carried the Gospel 
to the Bulgarians toward the close of this same 
century. 

Then we would be compelled to pass over three 
barren centuries. Does some one exclaim, "But 
were not the Crusades missionary movements ?" 
Well, we do not find them so. We do not deny 
the high aim, the devotion, the courage, displayed 
by these movements, but they were not mission- 
ary, they were military. They were not for the 
proclamation of a gospel, but for the conquest of 
sacred places. But we would mention Raymond 
Lull (1236- 13 1 5 A. D.), the lonely forerunner of 
missions to Moslems; and then — well, then we 
should quote Warneck, "Missionary activity, 
which had been growing more and more external, 
came gradually to a standstill in the fourteenth 
century." 

Thus are we brought down to the age of the 
Reformation. What did the leaders of the Refor- 
mation teach on this subject? Warneck proves 
conclusively that missionary activity was not even 
within the horizon of their thought. It may be 
possible to write an apology for their attitude, 
but it is scarcely possible to deny the fact. On 
the other hand, every one will recognize the in- 



THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. 155 

estimable value of the Reformation in giving us 
a pure gospel to promulgate. 

These references to the missionary record of Record hameful 
the Church are scanty enough. They scarcely 
give a word for each page of interesting narra- 
tive, but they are made lest the next statement 
should seem a wholly superficial generalization. 
And that statement is that the Church's mission- 
ary activity throughout these centuries of the 
Christian era is shamefully, inexplicably trivial. 
Such missionary work as was done was the re- 
sult of no general movement of the Church of 
God, but the work of single individuals and small 
bands of men, whom the organized Church for 
the most part ignored and only later generations 
honored. Furthermore, even the most detailed 
account of missionary effort leaves great gaps of 
decades and centuries and great sections of the 
Church during which and by which no mission- 
ary work at all was done. Finally, if we take all 
that was done in the first eighteen centuries of 
the Christian era, the total amount is pitifully 
small. We take a well-known Church history 
of 664 pages. Only 76 pages of this narrative 
are devoted to the recital of the spread of the 
Gospel. A double inference is possible: either 
the history is inaccurate and the Church has 
been active in ways unrecorded, or the history 
presents a true picture and the Church has only 



156 god's plan for world redemption. 

spent about one-tenth of its energy — if that — 
in carrying out even remotely the divine pro- 
gram. We believe the latter inference is the sad 
but correct one. 
The Plan Thus we see the great missionary program 

which Christ gave to His Church, unrealized. 
As with Israel in the Period of Preparation, so 
with the Church in the Period of Application, 
the people chosen of God lost sight of their high 
calling, narrowed their world-wide mission, and, 
through disobedience and selfishness, allowed the 
missionary ideal to suffer eclipse. Yet must we 
recognize that in the dark days of the Christian 
era, as in the dark days of the Old Testament 
dispensation, there have been marvelous overrul- 
ings of human disobedience, gracious forbear- 
ance on the part of God and, above all, an un- 
broken succession of devoted souls, who, because 
their hearts were pure, were able to see their 
Lord's World Missionary Plan. Thus are we 
brought to the modern missionary period. 

The Vision Unveiled Again 

In the year 1910, three great gatherings were 
held which may well symbolize the unveiling of 
the missionary vision in this our day. 

On the opening day of the year, 3,747 young 
men and women were gathered together, in the 



THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. 1 57 

city of Rochester, N. Y., for the sixth conven- f e ^ r d s ent Volun " 
tion of the Student Volunteer Movement, mark- 
ing, however, the twenty-fifth year of the Move- 
ment's life. The theme of this great gathering, 
representing 735 educational institutions of 
America, was World Conquest. The' rallying 
cry of this Movement is: The evangelization 

OF THE WORLD IN THIS GENERATION. 

In May of the same year, there gathered in La y men - 
the city of Chicago, 4,219 men, for the most part 
business men, from 47 different States, with 
others from Canada and others from abroad. 
The theme of this great gathering was World 
Conquest. Its opening message was : The will 

OF CHRIST FOR THE WORLD. 

In June of the same year, there gathered in the ^£ d Confer " 
city of Edinburgh, Scotland, a company of 1,200 
accredited delegates, besides a still larger number 
in parallel sessions, representing the whole world 
of Protestant Christianity and the whole world of 
missionary activity. The theme of this great 
gathering was World Conquest. The dominant 
note was : Our sufficiency is from god. 

These three great gatherings bespeak, as no ^^ signifl- 
array of isolated missionary facts may do, the 
modern missionary period to which Christ's 
Church has come, and the unveiling before her 
eyes of the Missionary Vision for the consumma- 
tion of the divine Plan for World Redemption. 



158 god's plan for world redemption. 

And these three great gatherings symbolize 
mighty forces which are needed for the realiza- 
tion of that Vision, forces which have not been 
available in the past through the unwillingness of 
man, but forces which the Spirit of God has now 
placed at the disposal of the Church for her 
mighty task. 

(1) The Rochester Convention symbolizes 
surrendered life. 

(2) The Chicago Convention symbolizes sur- 
rendered wealth. 

(3) The Edinburgh Conference symbolizes 
Christian unity and Divine sufficiency. 

what Might it The movements which symbolize these forces, 

not Mean? u J 

which are now becoming available for World 
Conquest, were not born of man, but of God. 
Their synchronous appearance is significant of 
the eternal purposes of God. It is, to use a 
phrase of Mr. John R. Mott, "the time of times." 
It is "the decisive hour of Christian missions." 
Whatever faithlessness may have prevented in the 
past the earlier fulfilment of the divine Plan for 
World Redemption, the Christian Church once 
again has come to the border of the Promised 
Land, and may enter in, accomplishing the will 
of its Lord by world evangelization. Does there 
not come a thrill of sublime imagining as we 
stand over against so great a possibility of our 
day and generation : that with the Church's obe- 



THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. 1 59 

dience to the command of its Lord, the great 
eternal purposes of God might swing upon their 
hinges and usher in that Great Next which lies 
beyond the age in which we live. 



CHAPTER VII 



The Individual and God's Plan 



11 



"I worship thee, sweet will of God! 

And all thy ways adore; 
And every day I live, I seem 
To love thee more and more. 

"Thou wert the end, the blessed rule 
Of our Saviour's toils and tears ; 
Thou wert the passion of His heart 
Those three and thirty years. 

"And He hath breath'd into my soul 

A special love of thee, 
A love to lose my will in His, 
And by that loss be free." 

— F. W. Faber. 

"He that doeth the will of God abideth forever." 

— John, the Apostle. 

"The lives which seem so poor, so low, 
The hearts which are so cramped and dull, 
The baffled hopes, the impulse slow; 
Thou takest, touchest all, and lo ! 
They blossom to the beautiful." 



VII 

THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD'S PLAN 

THE one possession of every individual is 
life. Not all have wealth. Not all have 
social position. Not all have education. 
But every person in this world is at least 
the possessor of life. 

No theme is of greater interest to each indi- M y Life - 
vidual than that which deals with his life. "I 
want to make the most of my life." "It will ruin 
my life." "I am going to put my life into this 
work!" How often we hear such remarks, and 
the entire thought of the speaker centers in the 
life which he calls his. There is here an anxiety, 
a sort of terrible earnestness, which belongs not 
only to youth, but also to the consideration of 
anything that is supremely important. And life 
is a supremely important subject: my life to me; 
your life to you. We each have but one life to 
live and we do not want that to be a mere experi- 
ment ; a mere attempt at trying to fit a square peg 
into a round hole, or a round peg into a square 
hole. 

What makes the problem of life all the more 

163 



164 god's plan for world redemption. 

?ibinties y Pos " diffi cu ft an ^ trying, is the fact that, in this age of 
freedom and opportunity, we may start out in so 
many different directions. So many professions 
and callings, so many different ideals and types of 
life! We may be drawn to some one of these, 
attracted to it by our tastes or talents or ambi- 
tions. But the way is long and circuitous. The 
pathway often climbs steep hills and is rough. 
Shall we be equal to the task ? Shall we be able 
to stand the heat of the day, and the labor of the 
journey, and arrive at the goal? Or are we to 
fail, and to find, at the last, our lives cast with 
other lives on the scrap heap of the world's fail- 
ures ? Where shall we get help in answering this 
question? Will we get help from the Book? 

An Individual Life Flan 

p?an has a There is revealed in the Word of God a truth, 

whose beauty and power have made it the theme 
of many sermons. 1 It is the most magnificent 
conception of human life found anywhere in the 
world. It is the conception that God has an in- 
dividual life plan for each of His children. Again 
and again, do we see the children of God living in 
the full assurance of this truth. To his brothers 
who with evil intentions had sold him as a slave, 
Joseph declared, "Now it was not you that sent 

1 Bushnell's Sermon, "Ev^ry Man's Life a Plan of God." 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD'S PLAN. 165 

me hither, but God." To David came the mes- 
sage of Jehovah by the prophet Nathan, "Thus 
saith Jehovah of hosts, I took thee from the 
sheepcote, from following the sheep, that thou 
shouldest be prince over My people, over Israel ; 
and I have been with thee whithersoever thou 
wentest." Of Cyrus, it was written by prophetic 
pen, "Thus saith Jehovah to HHs anointed, to 
Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden ... 
I have called thee by thy name : I have surnamed 
thee .... I will gird thee." Of John the 
Baptist it is written, "There came a man, sent 
from God, whose name was John." And Paul 
inscribes himself "an apostle of Christ Jesus 
through the will of God." For each of His chil- 
dren God has a life plan. Up yonder in the mind 
and thought of God, already worked out, is a 
plan for the individual life. 

Paul, perhaps, more than any other, unfolds Paul's Aim. 
this splendid conception of life. Writing to the 
Philippians, he says, "I press on toward the goal 
unto the prize of the high calling of God in 
Christ Jesus." * That "high calling of God" was 
the divine plan for his life. Paul had accepted 
that plan. His great ambition now was to re- 
alize that plan in every detail. 

But is not this too daring a conception of life ? was ^Pre- 
Was not Paul a bit presumptuous in thinking 

a Phil. 3: 14. 



166 god's plan for world redemption. 

that his life could find a distinct place in the will 
and mind of God, that his life work could occupy 
the thought of God, and that he, Paul, had been 
separately, individually, specially called of God? 
Who was he? Lord Kelvin "reckons that there 
must be a thousand million suns and planets in 
space ! In this measureless ocean of star- 
thronged space, our little earth is but a pin- 
point. If God, says one despairing astronomer, 
dispatched one of His angels to discover this 
tiny planet amongst the glittering hosts of His 
stars, it would be like sending a child out upon 
some vast prairie to find a speck of sand at the 
root of some blade of grass." And Paul was 
just one of a thousand million human beings liv- 
ing upon this pin-point of a planet. How could 
the Great Creator of the whole universe give 
separate thought to Paul's life, or even to the 
greatest movements of human life? 

"What is it all but the murmur of gnats 
In the gleam of a million, million suns !" 

Dare to Be- Yet Paul would dare to believe that God had 

lieve it. 

a plan for his life. Nay, Paul was forced to be- 
lieve this, unless he should reject the profound- 
est spiritual experiences of his life. Did not 
Christ seek him out on the Damascus road and 
say to him, "To this end have I appeared unto 
thee" ? Had not the divinely commissioned 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD'S PLAN. 1 67 

Ananias brought unto him the message, "The 
God of our fathers hath appointed thee to know 
His will." God then had a will for Paul, a plan 
for his life, a purpose for him to accomplish. 
Paul would not only believe this, he would sur- 
render his life henceforth to the realization of 
that divine will. "I press on toward the goal 
unto the prize of the high calling of God." 

Nor is it in a spirit of egotism that Paul re- 
cords this inspiring truth, as though God had se- 
lected him alone among men and conceived a 
plan for his life only. Not so. Was Paul called 
of God? So were others. Paul was heaven- 
sent, but all men are heaven-sent if they only 
knew it. It was to share with others the com- 
fort, the hope, the inspiration of this truth, — a 
truth applicable to human life everywhere — that 
he makes record of it in his letter to the Phil- 
ippians. 

There is then, no more inspiring conception 
of life than this : That God has a plan for every 
life; a separate plan for each separate life ; a plan 
suited and fitted to each separate life ; a plan pos- 
sible of realization by each separate life; a plan 
for your life and a plan for mine. 

Advantages of this Conception 

No conception of life will deliver us so fully Jjj^wed 11 
from the danger of base imitation of other lives. 



168 god's plan for world redemption. 

Here is a common danger. We come under the 
influence of dominating personalities, and, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, our lives become awk- 
ward copies and false reproductions of these 
lives. Or, seeking to deliver ourselves from the 
influence of our environment, we fall into the 
opposite fault and become eccentric. Paul's con- 
ception of life offers a separate plan for each life. 
It is only human plans that are monotonously 
alike. God's plans show variety. No two are 
alike. God uses the pattern once, then throws 
away the moulding thought. Christ will not 
suffer Peter to become a John, and when Peter 
seeks to pry into John's future by asking, "And 
what shall this man do," the sharp rebuke is ad- 
ministered, "What is that to thee? Follow thou 
Me." 

"Men look about on other men, 
And some behold with talents ten. 
Alas ! what further use to live, 
For God to us but five did give? 

"Don't waste thy life in idle tears, 
Because an abler man appears, 
But be thyself!" 

And can a man be himself more truly than in 
realizing the plan of God for him ? 
Smted to Each This conception of life brings also the assur- 
ance of a life-calling for which we are fitted. 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD'S PLAN. 169 

We often find men following professions for 
which they are manifestly unfitted. Business 
men who ought to have been preachers, preach- 
ers who ought to have been teachers, teachers 
who ought to have been lawyers. Parents may 
be careful in the choice of a life-work for their 
children, yet we all doubtless know of fatal mis- 
takes made by loving parents who have forced 
their children into professions for which they 
were unfitted. Neither does a man fully know 
himself. His own judgment may err. Moses 
said to God, "Oh, Lord, I am not eloquent. 
Send, I pray Thee, by the hand of him whom 
Thou wilt send." The book of Deuteronomy 
and the history of Israel prove that Moses did 
not know his own powers of speech and of lead- 
ership, but God knew them when He called him 
to become the deliverer of Israel. He Who cre- 
ated man and knows what is in man, He Who 
holds the future in His hand and disposes of the 
providences of men's lives, He it is Who can, 
and Hie alone can, issue to every life a high call- 
ing which will be measured to the talents and the 
gifts, the strength and the ability of that life. 

This conception of life also gives dignity to Dignifies Life, 
all the details of life. The humbler duties of life, 
if you are following God's plan, are a part of 
God's will, and as such, are worthy of the most 
faithful performance. If imprisonment, if sick- 



I70 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

ness, if delays came to Paul as he pressed toward 
his high calling, what matter? He could afford 
to wait as well as labor. He could afford to lie 
still and suffer as well as be active. These ex- 
periences were a part of God's will for him. 
a o Mosiem The Mohammedans tell the story that Gabriel, 

while standing by the open gates of gold, was 
sent by God on a double errand. The one was to 
remind King Solomon of the hour of prayer 
which he was in danger of forgetting on an oc- 
casion of victory. The other was to help a little 
ant, grown weary in search of food and in dan- 
ger of being swept away by the rain. To Ga- 
briel both duties were of kingly dignity, for both 
were God's commands. 

"Silently he left the Presence and prevented the King's 

sin, 
And helped the little ant at entering in. 
Naught is too high or low, 
Too mean or mighty, if God wills it so." 

So often defeated in the little struggles of life, 
so often unfaithful in the little duties of life, so 
often disheartened by the little vexations of life, 
do we not need the inspiring and inspiriting in- 
fluence of this conception of life, which lifts the 
humblest duty out of the commonplace and gives 
it a place in the divine will and purpose? 

This conception of life has the supreme ad- 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD S PLAN. 171 

vantage that it imparts an assurance of success, success As- 



sured. 



To the man who is following the plan of God 
for him, defeat and failure are impossible. No 
matter what may be the opposition, he has God 
on his side ; and one with God is a majority. No 
matter what odds he is facing, victory is assured, 
for he is joined to the Invincible One. With 
Paul, he may exclaim, "If God is for us, who is 
against us?" 

If, now, we wish to make this divine plan the 
great aim of our lives, an important question 
presses upon us. 

The Discovery of the Plan 

How may I discover the high calling of God? ** ow Discover 
If it be true that God has a plan for my life, 
how may I discover what that plan is? 

It is Paul again who will give us the answer 
to such a question. His answer is found in these 
three words: "In Christ Jesus." 

It is true that much light comes to us from the Lesser Helps, 
advice of friends. The opinions of the people 
of God often reflect truly the will of God. We 
are also often guided helpfully by unusual provi- 
dences in our lives, those occurrences over which 
we have no control, but which show forth the will 
of God because they are ordered by Him. It is 
also true that many helpful principles are to be 



172 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



The Supreme 
Guide. 



Monotony. 



found in the Scriptures; the Word of God re- 
veals the will of God. But we find the heart of 
divine revelation in these words: "God . . . 
hath spoken unto us in His Son." 

After all, the inferences which we shall draw 
from the advice of friends, from the providences 
of our lives, from the statements of the Word of 
God, will all depend upon our attitude to Jesus 
Christ. In a profound and comprehensive sense, 
therefore, the revelation to each man of the plan 
of God for him is "in Christ Jesus." 

Does some one object that thus a strange mo- 
notony will overtake human life, as one, and an- 
other, and another, take Jesus Christ as the pat- 
tern of their lives ? Let us go out then into the 
fields and view the handiwork of God. Here is 
the rose with its beautiful red, and here the vio- 
let with its delicate hue, and yonder on the hill- 
side the grass with its softest shades of green. 
Where did these get their coloring? You say 
from the sun. But the light of the sun is white ; 
not red, not violet, not green. Yes, but in the 
pure white light of the sun the rose found what 
it needed to make it red, the violet found what 
it needed to give it its hue, the grass found what 
it needed to make it green. So Christ is the 
Light of the World! In the light of His life, 
rich and poor, old and young, learned and un- 
learned, men, women and children, all find what 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD'S PLAN. 1 73 

is needed to reveal to each life its perfect type, 
and to enable each life to realize its perfect ideal. 
The revelation of the high calling of God for 
each life is "in Christ Jesus." 

Perhaps some one says, "But I have not been 
able to get in Christ a vision of what my life 
should be. My high calling has not yet been re- 
vealed to me." So we may well ask how we 
must come to Christ to discover in Him God's 
plan for our individual lives. 

First of all, we must come to Christ as to a £ s . High 

. . Priest. 

High Priest. There is no revelation of the will 
of God, until sacrifice has been offered, and sins 
have been taken away, and the past has been for- 
given. 

"My soul is sailing through the sea, 
But the Past is heavy and hindereth me, 
The Past hath crusted, cumbrous shells, 
That hold the flesh of old sea-mells 

About my soul. 
The huge waves wash, the high waves roll 
Each barnacle clingeth and worketh dole, 

And hindereth me from sailing! 
Old Past, let go and drop i' the sea 
Till fathomless waters cover thee! 
For I am living, but thou art dead ; 
Thou drawest back, I strive ahead 

The day to find." 

It is only as we get release from the past 
through our High Priest, that we can come, 



174 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

through Him also, to a knowledge of the will of 
God for us. 

As Lord. In the second place, we must come to Christ 

as to a Lord and King. He does not reveal the 
divine plan to the merely curious. "If any man 
willeth (i. e., is willing) to do His will, he shall 
know of the teaching" (John 7: 17). The will 
of God is only for those who come with surren- 
dered wills, purposing to obey the command of 
their Lord and King, the moment it is revealed. 

As Prophet. I n the third place, we must come to Christ as 

to a Prophet, finding in His life the underlying 
principle of God's revelation for our individual 
lives. This is what Christ Himself said: "As 
the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you" 
(John 20: 21). Now for what did the Father 
send Christ into the world? We must find that 
out. It holds the secret of our life-calling. Did 
the Father send Christ into the world to enjoy 
life? We may be sure the beauties of this world 
were never so beautiful as in His eyes. 

"The olives they were not blind to Him, 
The little gray leaves were kind to Him, 
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him, 
When into the woods He came." 

But we will all agree that Jesus Christ did not 
come into this world to enjoy life. Did the 
Father send Him, then, into the world to develop 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD S PLAN. I75 

character? So many Christians think this is the 
great aim of life here on earth. Thank God, we 
do develop character here, being transformed 
from one degree of glory into another degree of 
glory into the image of our Lord. But is this the 
chief purpose of life here on earth? Was it 
Christ's? We do not know what the Incarna- 
tion may have meant to the Godhead, but we can 
safely say that Jesus Christ was not sent into this 
world to develop character. 

Why, then, was He sent? We must find out, Why was Ho 

Jy ' . sent? 

for it holds the secret of God's plan for our lives. 
He Himself tells us, "The Son of man came to 
seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19: 

10). 

"As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I 
you," — "to seek and to save that which was lost." 
Every life, then, is to be built into the great re- 
demptive purpose of God. The plan of God for 
every individual life is related to the great 
Plan for World Redemption. What a concep- 
tion this is ! My life finds a place in the great 
Plan for World Redemption which is sweeping 
through the centuries. My life becomes related 
to its triumphs in the past and to its glories in the 
future. A great redemptive arch is being built, 
which spans Time and reaches into Eternity. 
Christ is the keystone of that arch, but my life 



176 god's plan for world redemption. 

may also be built into it somewhere, if I will ac- 
cept God's plan for my individual life. 
Not an This does not mean that all men are called to 

PrG3.chGrs 

be preachers or formal missionaries, although 
undoubtedly many are. But it does mean that, 
whatever the profession and calling, — medicine, 
business, law, industry, home life, teaching, — the 
life shall be somehow related, and related fully 
and directly, to God's great Plan for redeeming 
humanity. The high calling of God "in Christ 
Jesus" was revealed to Ian Keith Falconer, and 
for him it meant to lay aside his literary work at 
Cambridge and go forth to Arabia, there to live 
and there to die as a herald of the cross. It was 
revealed to Charles Gordon, and for him it meant 
to be a Christian soldier, repressing rebellion, 
overthrowing slavery, and at last making a su- 
preme appeal to the Church and the Christian 
world for the redemption of the Sudan by his 
martyr death at Khartum. It was revealed to 
Dr. Bernardo, and for him it meant to go into 
the East End of London during the cholera scare 
of 1866, and, finding his first waif, to conceive a 
plan for rescuing outcasts, establishing innumer- 
able homes and saving over sixty thousand boys 
and girls. It was revealed to William Carey, 
and it led the cobbler to India, there to become a 
linguist, a translator, a teacher, a missionary. It 
was revealed to Mary Hunter, and it meant that 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD S PLAN. 1 77 

she should be the mother and inspirer of David 
Livingstone, who set in motion forces for heal- 
ing the "open sore" of Africa. 

Beyond this we may not go in defining the life 
plans of God for men, but thus far we may con- 
fidently go and assert that no life which stands 
unrelated to God's great redemptive purpose is 
following the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 

The Realization of the Plan 

Still another question demands an answer. It 
is this, Knowing God's plan for my individual 
life, how may I realize it? Three general an- 
swers to that question may be given, although 
the details must vary with each life and with the 
changing circumstances of life. 

1. To realize the divine plan will require, first preparation, 
of all, Preparation. In God's World Plan we 
found a Period of Preparation. So too, in His 
plan for the individual life, there will be days of 
preparation. God grant that increasingly the 
vision of God's plan may come to young men and 
women, who are yet in that period of life in 
which they may best make preparation for the 
realization of the divine plan for their lives! It 
makes it possible for God to work so much more 
powerfully and so much more gloriously when 
His plan has been recognized in the early years 

12 



178 god's plan for world redemption. 

of life, which were especially meant to be days 
of preparation, although also days of practice. 
How much of preparation Jesus Christ made for 
the plan of God for His life ! Some thirty years 
were spent quietly at Nazareth, during which He 
"advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor 
with God and man." Surely there was need for 
haste in His performance of His mission ! Why 
not plunge into His life-work at twenty-one? 
Our age, with its foolish, feverish haste, needs to 
learn that God's appointed time for preparation is 
"time saved/' if we would realize the divine plan. 
Physical. There must be physical preparation. Out yon- 

der in the heart of the years to come are burdens 
to be carried, and battles to be fought, and vigils 
to be kept, and great strain to be endured, and 
for these, physical strength is required. Given 
equal powers otherwise, victory goes to the man 
whose physical strength enables him to carry 
great burdens without breaking. "How often is 
it," said a speaker at a great convention, "that 
some self-denial in the way of food, exercise, or 
time of going to bed or getting up, some habit not 
evil in itself perhaps, may change under God our 
whole work for Him, The other day I was din- 
ing at a house in England and one of the daugh- 
ters, a girl of about seventeen, came up to say 
'Good-night.' I remarked that she was going 
up early — soon after nine. Her reply was: 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD'S PLAN. I79 

'Father says that I must have eight hours in bed, 
as I have not been strong ; and every five minutes 
that I spend after ten o'clock in getting to bed, 
means that I have five minutes less with God be- 
fore breakfast'." 

There must also be intellectual development, intellectual. 
The Christian religion is the profoundest religion 
in the world : the best intellectual development is 
needed to grasp and present its truths. The 
world missionary enterprise is the most colossal 
enterprise that has ever been launched in human 
life : the best intellectual development is needed in 
all who would relate their lives to its activities. 
When the Church at Antioch sent forth mission- 
aries, it was not their second rate or third rate 
men who went, but their best and strongest, Paul 
and Barnabas. Only our best intellectual devel- 
opment will suffice for the splendid projects 
which God commits to humanity for realization. 

There must also be spiritual development. This s P iritual - 
means cleanness of life. "Know ye not that ye 
are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God 
dwelleth in you ? If any man destroyeth the tem- 
ple of God, him shall God destroy" (I Cor. 3: 
16). Alas, how many spiritual battles have been 
lost, because this moral and spiritual preparation 
was neglected. Happy the man who can enter the 
conflict with the reassuring confidence : 



i8o god's plan for world redemption. 



Service. 



Witnessing. 



"My strength is as the strength of ten, 
Because my heart is pure." 

Spiritual development will also mean a direct 
and personal acquaintance with God. God's plan 
can be carried forward only by God's strength, 
and how shall that man renew his strength, who 
knows not the secret of approach to God. As he 
goes out to realize the plan of God for his life, he 
will find others "already under the fullest strain. 
He dare not draw on them for spiritual life. If 
he has no springs in him where the Living Water 
is flowing, woe to him ! Can he give to others if 
his own supply is scant?" 

Physical, intellectual and spiritual preparation 
is needed to help us realize God's plan for the in- 
dividual life. 

2. In the second place, to realize God's plan 
there must be Service. 

One form of service is witnessing. In the life 
of the early Church, we noted what a supreme 
place this had, and we noted how this witnessing 
was the secret of the growth of the Church. A 
marvelous prominence is given to this Christian 
duty in a verse of Revelation: "And they over- 
came him, because of the blood of the Lamb, and 
because of the word of their testimony; and they 
loved not their life even unto death" (Rev. 12: 
10). God's World Plan of Redemption can never 



ACROSS THE 
SEA 




97 

LIVES 



AVERAGE RESPONSIBILITY 

The average responsibility of every member of the United Presbyterian Church 
is illustrated by this diagram. This responsibility is three fold : 

First, for one's own life. This stands at the center, for out it are the issues 
of life-giving service. 

Second, for three other lives, in America. Census figures show that for every 
member of an evangelical Christian Church in America, there are three who 
are not professing Christians. Responsibilty extends to these. 

Third, for ninety-seven lives across the sea. Of these some fifty-eight are 
in Egypt, some thirty-three are in India, and six are in Sudan. 

This is the average life's responsibility. Would you want your life reckoned 
as being below the average? What, then, are you doing to discharge this aver- 
age responsibility? Some will shirk. Will you? And because some will shirk, 
others must carry more than the average responsibility. Will you? 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD'S PLAN. l8l 

be realized by organized missions, unless God's 
plan for the individual life be realized also in wit- 
nessing. "Every believer a soul-winner — that 
does not mean only, among other things, but first 
of all, as the chief reason of his existence. In 
every believer, the supreme, the sole end of our 
being is, the saving of souls." l How greatly we 
need to learn this truth in Western Lands ! What 
a contrast to our dumb Christianity is the wit- 
nessing joy and the witnessing power of the con- 
verts of so many mission fields. Let Korean 
Christianity preach to us: "Thousands of them 
last year gave from one week to one month each 
to the work of proclaiming the Gospel in neigh- 
boring and in distant communities. It is probable 
that a larger proportion of Korean Christians 
have won others to Christ than of those in the 
Church of any other land. Often the test ques- 
tion in connection with admission to Church 
membership is, 'Have you led some other soul to 
Jesus Christ?' " 4 

Another form of service is stezvardship. This stewardship, 
is the service which money makes possible. And 
what is a true conception of money? Dr. Schauff- 
ler says: "Money is myself." Then he illus- 
trates after this fashion: I am a day laborer; I 

3 A. Murray's "The Key to the Missionary Problem," page 
141. 

4 J. R. Mott's "The Decisive Hour of Christian Missions," 
page 77. 



182 god's plan for world redemption. 

get two dollars a day ; the two dollars which I put 
in my pocket at the close of the day is two dollars' 
worth of my muscle, turned into money and put 
in my pocket. Or I am a clerk and I get twenty 
dollars a week. The money I get on Saturday 
night represents twenty dollars worth of myself 
as clerk. Or I am a merchant; I balance my 
books at the end of the week and I find myself 
one thousand dollars to the good. That one thou- 
sand dollar check that I may draw represents one 
thousand dollars' worth of myself as merchant, 
turned into money and deposited in the bank. 
Money is, therefore, stored-up life: yesterday's 
life, last week's life, last year's life, the life of a 
past generation, 
stored-up ^nd this stored-up life belongs to the owner. 

It is his as truly as his own life is his. He can 
put it to work, just as he might put himself to 
work, and the stored-up life will work and do 
things to the limit of its capacity just as the man 
himself can work to the limit of his capacity. The 
only difference between the man and his money is, 
that the man represents to-day's working power 
and the money represents yesterdays working 
power. And the man controls both. 

Because of this fact, there is no real consecra- 
tion of life to God without the consecration of 
such money or wealth as is owned. To consecrate 
the life without money is virtually to say : "Here, 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD'S PLAN. 1 83 

Lord, I give to Thee that part of myself which 
relates to to-day, but that which relates to yes- 
terday I keep as my own." 

Because money is life, the will of God ex- Money and 

« . \ 1 1 • f God's Will. 

tends to it, too, and it also must be subjected 
absolutely to Christ as Lord. It also enters 
into God's great Plan for World Redemption. 

Money is therefore no more to be despised, or 
wasted, or ignored, than is breath, or intellect, 
or talent. It is to be used. This stored-up life 
can be sent to distant places and released in 
work. It will build school houses; it will plant 
churches; it will establish hospitals; it will 
preach the Gospel. And in every such act, it is 
the owner's life which is being projected to these 
distant lands. His feet thus move about in 
places of need; his hands minister to human 
want ; his lips speak the glad tidings to lives whom 
he has never known, but into whose faces he will 
yet gaze in the Kingdom of Light. The obliga- 
tion therefore on every life related to Christ is, 
"Go or send." And it has been well pointed out 
by Dr. J. D. Rankin that from the point of view 
of surrender and sacrifice, sending should in- 
volve just as much as going. 

Over this part of human life, which has ever The Tithe, 
had such a tendency to escape from its proper 
submission to the divine will, God has set the 
tithe as a symbol and seal of His sovereignty. 



184 god's plan for world redemption. 

This symbol of divine sovereignty may be lost in 
a joyful surrender to service which goes far be- 
yond the ordinance of the tithe. But it is at his 
peril, if not to his condemnation, that a man will 
venture to remove from his life this sign of 
God's sovereignty over his possessions, and give 
less to the Lord than the tithe. Like a shield of 
burnished gold shines the law of the tithe 
through the story of sacred history from Gene- 
sis 5 to Malachi. 6 While in the New Testament, 
to a tithe-observing age, the messages of Christ 
and of the Apostles point to that deeper fellow- 
ship with God which will subject, not less, but 
more to His service and to His redemptive pur- 
; „ r poses. 7 
Prayer. Another form of service is that of prayer. 

Prayer is work. It is work in that it does things. 
It is also work in that it is exhausting. Such 
prayer, however, is something more than what 
commonly goes by that name. It is more than 
an impulse. It is more than an emotion. It is 
an activity which has its root in the will. It is 
an activity which a Spirit-guided human will en- 
gages in, laying hold of God for blessings. 8 Such 
prayer may become a great agony in its earnest- 
ness. 9 We recall the words of J. Hudson Taylor, 

B Gen. 14 : 20. e Mai. 3 : 10. 

T Matt. 5 : 20 ; 23 : 23 ; 13 : 44-46 ; I Cor. 16 : 2. 

8 Rom. 8: 26, 27. 9 Rom. 9: 1, 2; 10: 1 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD'S PLAN. 1 85 

"If we are simply to pray to the extent of a sim- 
ple and pleasant and enjoyable exercise, and 
know nothing of watching in prayer, we shall 
not draw down the blessing that we may." 

Now God has given prayer a large place in the its Large 
relation which the individual life may sustain to 
the great World Plan. There are many things 
which the Plan calls for, which are quite impos- 
sible from all human point of view. And God 
wants these impossible things to occur, and He 
has set prayer as the agency by which the impos- 
sible can be made to occur. 

"In 1886, the China Inland Mission had 200 Prayer An- 
swered, 
missionaries. A number of them met that year 

for an eight days' conference for Bible study 
and also for united prayer. While they were to- 
gether they were led to unite in prayer that God 
would thrust forth into that Mission during the 
year 100 additional missionaries; and before the 
conference closed one of them suggested that 
they have a praise meeting to thank God for an- 
swering the prayer, because he said, 'We shall 
not all of us be able to come together for that 
purpose a year hence.' They did so. Within 
the following year there were 600 who applied to 
be sent out; the Mission selected and sent out 
100 of them. 

"It required an increase in their budget from Money secured. 
$100,000 to $150,000. Hudson Taylor and some 



186 god's flan for world redemption. 

of his co-workers have called attention to the 
fact that they were led, on account of the pres- 
sure of their work, to offer this prayer, that, if 
it were the will of God, the $50,000 needed might 
be received in large amounts. Within a year in 
eleven gifts, ranging from $2,500 to over $12,- 
000, the whole sum came." This is service 
through prayer. 10 

Life. Yet another form of service is that of life. 

Not all can go, but all should be willing to go. 
This high standard of loyalty and submission 
should characterize all. Then, some must go. 
Else how shall the Plan for World Redemption 
be carried forward? Just because the World 
Plan requires that many go, we may be sure 
that God's individual life-plans for many, are 
that they shall go. And if this be God's plan for 
their individual lives, they must break through 
hindrances which would prevent them from go- 
ing. Every circumstance of life is not a guid- 
ing providence. There are circumstances which 
men are meant to conquer, if they would realize 
the divine will for their lives. And the bravest 
get through. 

The Leader. "Now to the common breed," says Bishop 

Brent, "the unwonted is the impossible, — things 
as they have been are sacred and must be held 



10 J. R. Mott's "The Pastor and Modern Missions," page 
195. 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND GOD'S PLAN. 187 

inviolable, and everything but the present order 
is disorder. It is the part of a Leader to confute 
the unbrave and to disregard the worship of 
things as they are, in his essay to reach things as 
they ought to be. Unknown country may be 
dangerous; lions, perhaps, will be in the way. 
But the Leader sees security in the midst of 
danger and rather likes lions." n 

Lest these strong words should seem to invite 
wilfulness, we need only add that in the invest- 
ment of life we are to daily submit to the guid- 
ance of the Holy Spirit as He interprets to us the 
will of God. If we study the life of Paul, we 
shall find he was guided rather by the leadings 
of the Spirit, than influenced by external circum- 
stances in life. 11 

3. Finally, there is a third requirement for the Dependence on 
realization of God's plan for the individual life. 
There must be not only preparation, not only 
service in its fourfold form,; there must also be 
Dependence upon Jesus Christ, And this must 
be, not lastly, but first and last and all the while. 
There must be this supremely. Going forth to 
realize the low and unworthy ideals of our own 
human devising, we find our strength insuffi- 
cient. How then shall we be able to realize, in 
our own strength, the infinite and perfect plan of 

11 C. H. Brent's "Leadership," page 102. 

"Acts 16: 6, 7, 10; I Cor. 16: 9; II Tim. 4: 14-18. 



1 88 god's plan for world redemption. 

God for our individual lives ? Alone, we cannot 
do it. We can only do it through Him Who is 
not only the wisdom of God, but also the power 
of God. We can only do it through Him Who is 
not only the Truth, but also the Way to the 
Truth. As the revelation of the divine plan was 
"in Christ Jesus/' so too must the realization 
of the plan be "in Christ Jesus." Only in the 
spirit of those ancient lines, can we hope to at- 
tain to the will of God for our individual lives : 

"Christ, as a light, 
Illumine and guide me ! 
Christ as a shield o'ershadow and cover me ! 
Christ be under me, Christ be over me! 
Christ be beside me 

On left hand and right! 
Christ be before me, behind me, about me, 
Christ this day be within and without me ! 

"Christ, the lowly and meek, 

Christ the All-Powerful, be 
In the heart of each to whom I speak, 
In the mouth of each who speaks to me ! 
In all who draw near me 
Or see me or hear me." 



CHAPTER VIII 



The Church and God's Plan 



"To the intent that now unto the principalities and 
the powers in the heavenly places might be made known 
through the church the manifold wisdom of God, ac- 
cording to the eternal purpose which He purposed in 
Christ Jesus our Lord." — Paul, the Apostle. 

"The Church's one Foundation 

Is Jesus Christ her Lord: 
She is His new creation 

By water and the Word ; 
From heaven He came and sought her 

To be His holy Bride, 
With His own Blood He bought her, 
And for her life He died." 

— S. /. Stone. 

"Be quite sure that the place of missions in the life 
of the Church must be the central place, and none other. 
That is what matters. Let people get hold of that, and 
it will tell — it is the merest commonplace to say it — it 
will tell for us at home as it will tell for those afield. 
Secure for that thought its true place, in our plans, our 
policy, our prayers, and then — why then, the issue is 
His, not ours. But it may well be that if that come 
true, 'there be some standing here to-night who shall 
not taste of death till they see/ — here on earth, in a 
way we know not now, — 'the Kingdom of God come 
with power/ " — Archbishop of Canterbury, at the Edin- 
burgh Conference. 



VIII 
THE CHURCH AND GOD'S PLAN 



T 



HE word "church" is used with a number several Mean- 
ings. 

of different meanings. We speak of 
"that church across the street," and we 
mean a building. We speak of "the 
leading church in town," and we mean not a 
building, but people who constitute a congrega- 
tion. We refer to "the Methodist Church, the 
Presbyterian Church, the United Presbyterian 
Church," and we mean these denominations or 
communions. There is still another use of the 
word. Paul says, "Christ also loved the Church, 
and gave Himself up for it ; that He might sancti- 
fy it, having cleansed it by the washing of water 
with the Word, that He might present the Church 
to Himself a glorious Church." 1 It is in this 
sense that we find the word chiefly used in the 
Scriptures although it is also used with the sec- 
ond meaning already referred to.' The Church, Gene?ai urch 
according to this larger and deeper meaning, is 
sometimes called the Church General. It is "the 
spiritual body of the redeemed, apart from tangi- 
ble organization, since no organization is coex- 

iEph. 5: 25-27. 2 Gal. 1: 2. 

191 



192 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

tensive with the Church." In the Scriptures, 
very many beautiful figures are used to set forth 
the Church in this sense. It is called "the 
Bride" 3 of Christ, "the Body" 4 of Christ, "the 
holy city Jerusalem." 5 Every believer, whatever 
his sex, or age, or calling, or denomination, or 
race, or nationality, is a member of this Church. 
His relation to the Church is maintained through 
the Holy Spirit, Who abides in his life and in the 
lives of all believers. This Church is always one. 
Its unity is maintained by the Holy Spirit Who 
abides in the life of every true believer. When a 
man is converted, he is joined to this body of be- 
lievers in Christ. The Holy Spirit makes him a 
member of this Church. 
The invisible But this is the Church General. Its organiza- 

Church. . • m 1 t 1 1 • • 1 

tion is not visible. Its membership is not known, 
save to God. Those who are nominal Christians 
but who are not truly converted, are not members 
of this Church, even though they have their 
names enrolled as members of a church. The 
value of this conception of the Church, is that it 
emphasizes the essential oneness in Christ of all 
believers. It ought to make each division of the 
Church and each individual believer very patient, 
very kind and charitable, very open-minded, and 
very sympathetic, in all relations sustained to- 
ward other divisions of the Church and other in- 



3 Rev. 22: 17. * Eph. 1: 22, 23. 5 Rev. 21: 10. 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. I93 

dividual believers, — to know that the same Holy 
Spirit Who is the source of life in one is also the 
source of life in the other. Then, too, this con- 
ception of the Church is helpful because it sets 
forth a great ideal. Whatever the Scriptures 
teach about the Church, every believer should 
try to have reproduced and realized in his own 
local congregation and in his own denomination. 
This brings up an important question. 

Chief Aim and Duty of the Church 

What is the chief aim and duty of the Church ? 
What is the Church for? 

If the question were answered according to social Life, 
existing conditions, some would have to say, 
that the Church is a social organisation. Now 
there is no doubt that there ought to be in all 
church life a great deal of Christian fellowship. 
The Apostle John says, "We know that we have 
passed out of death into life, because we love 
the brethren." 6 And the life of the early Church 
was a picture of believers coming together and 
rejoicing in the things which, as believers, they 
had in common or could share together. Yet 
scarcely any one would dare say that the chief 
aim of the Christian Church is social life, not 
even Christian social life. 

•John 3: 14. 
13 



194 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



A Training 
School. 



Guardian of 
Truth. 



Paul's Defini- 
tion. 



Another answer would be that the Church is 
a training school. Neither will any one deny 
that there is in all church life a great deal of the 
training element. There are moral lessons to be 
learned, spiritual truths to be apprehended, char- 
acter to be developed, God's will to be unfolded 
as it reaches out to human life everywhere. How 
much of training is necessary, both intellectual 
and religious, to master the laws of the King- 
dom ! Youth is to be instructed in righteousness, 
and old age is to be kept young and fresh by con- 
stant spiritual development. Yet no one would 
want to say that the chief aim and end of the 
Church was to serve as a training school. 

Another common conception is that the Church 
was established to serve as the guardian of 
truth. No one can look through history without 
seeing that the Church has been the guardian of 
the truth, the Defender of the Faith, through 
many periods that were dark with scepticism and 
dominated by sin. Yet surely it was not chiefly 
to defend His truth that Christ organized the 
Church in the world. We may say here what 
Spurgeon said of the Bible. He likened it to a 
lion, which men were trying to protect by caging 
it. "Let him loose/' he cried, "and he will defend 
himself." 

What then is the chief aim and end of the 
Church? God's World Plan is given in the 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. I95 

Book. The individual life plan is revealed in the 
Book. The divine Church plan will also be 
found in the Book. The Apostle Paul, writing 
to the Ephesians concerning God's great purpose, 
tells us what is the place of the Church in God's 
thought. The Plan of God is "to the intent, that 
now unto the principalities and the powers in the 
heavenly places might be made known through 
the Church the manifold wisdom of God accord- 
ing to the eternal purpose which He purposed in 
Christ Jesus our Lord." 7 Now "the manifold 
wisdom of God in Christ" is a redeemed human- 
ity. The Church is appointed to display to the 
universe the glory of a redeemed humanity. And 
this the Church cannot do until the Gospel of 
Christ has been carried to all humanity and pro- 
claimed to every creature. 

There is another clear word which declares the The Body of 

Christ 

missionary purpose of the Church's existence. It 
is where that figure is developed in which the 
Church is represented as "the Body of Christ" 
upon earth. That which He, as Head, desires to 
have realized here on earth can only be realized 
through the Church, which is His body. His 
lips can only speak as the Church speaks for 
Him. His hands can only reach out in blessing 
and His feet move on errands of mercy, as the 
Church, His Body, gives expression to His life. 8 

T Eph. 3 : 10-11. s John 17 : 7-11. 



196 god's plan for world redemption. 

As Christ's own love was world-wide, so must the 
Church's love be world-wide, 
its First Duty. g j) r> j am es Denney says, "If the spontan- 
eous expression of the Church's life is worship, 
its -first duty is to evangelize." And Dr. W. O. 
Carver says, "The Church is the product of mis- 
sions and exists to promote them. One does not 
forget the nurture of Christian character in the 
members, but this nurture is 'for the work of 
service.' " He makes the missionary spirit "the 
supreme proof of loyalty to the Lord — a test 
which applies first to the individual Christian and 
through him to the Church. The Church is a 
lampstand and when it no longer serves to illu- 
mine the darkness, the lampstand is removed out 
of its place." Andrew Murray is equally em- 
phatic when he says, "Missions are the chief end 
of the Church. All the work of the Holy Spirit 
in converting sinners and sanctifying believers, 
has this for its one aim — to fit them for the part 
that each miust at once take in winning back the 
world to God." And the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, Primate of the great Anglican Church, in 
his address before the World Missionary Con- 
ference in Edinburgh in 1910, said, "But be quite 
The central sure — ^ ls m Y single thought to-night — that the 
Place. place of missions in the life of the Church must 

be the central place, and none other. That is what 
matters. Let people get hold of that, and it will 



THE CHURCH AND GOD'S PLAN. 1 97 

tell — it is the merest commonplace to say it — it 
will tell for us at home as it will tell for those 
afield. Secure for that thought its true place, in 
our plans, our policy, our prayers, and then — 
why then, the issue is His, not ours. But it may 
well be that if that come true, 'there be some 
standing here to-night who shall not taste of death 
till they see/ — here on earth, in a way we know 
not now, — 'the Kingdom of God come with 
power.' " 

The Church Fulfilling Its Mission 

The world has not yet witnessed either the ilen. t0 be 
Church or any single division of the Church, 
wholly surrendered to the fulfilment of its divine 
mission. The world has witnessed individuals 
surrendered to the will of God and burning with 
a passion for the realization of God's will in their 
lives, — and the vision of such lives has been full 
of glory. But the world has not yet seen this 
thing happen in the life of an entire Church or de- 
nomination. The nearest approach to this ideal 
would seem to have been in the Golden Age of 
the early Church, but details are lacking and the 
vision is not clear. The next nearest approach to 
this ideal was in the Moravian Church. "In the 
first twenty years of its existence it actually sent 
out more missionaries than the whole Protestant 
Church had done in 200 years. It alone," con- 



198 god's plan for world redemption. 

tinues Andrew Murray, "of all the Churches, has 
actually sought to carry out the great truth, that 
to gather in to Christ the souls He died to save is 
the one object for which the Church exists. It 
alone has sought to teach and train all of its 
members to count it their first duty to Him Who 
loved them, to give their life to make Him known 

A^Rallying tQ others> » The ra H y i n g_ cry f this Church is, TO 

WIN FOR THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN THE REWARD 

of his sufferings. In 1 898, the Moravian 
Church had 24,150 communicants in the three 
home lands of this denomination. At that time 
they had 361 missionaries (including wives) on 
the foreign field, or one to each 64 home com- 
municants. The figures for the evangelical 
Churches of North America reveal but one for- 
eign missionary to every 4,000 home communi- 
cants. 9 

And why may not this vision be realized? Its 
realization must first be in the life of the indi- 
vidual, then in the life of an individual congrega- 
tion, then in the life of an individual denomina- 
tion, then — please God — in the life of the entire 
Church of Christ. Nor are the conditions under 
which this vision will be realized, far to seek. 
Accept Christ's ( i ) There must be the fullest acceptance of the 
Plan of Christ. The missionary purpose must 
dominate every department of church activity and 

9 J. R. Mott's "The Pastor and Modern Missions." 



Plan. 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 1 99 

every sphere of church life. Selfish considera- 
tions, wilful unchangefulness, and unholy ambi- 
tions must be dethroned in the life of the Church, 
that the Plan of Christ may be enthroned. The 
conflict with Self will not be less keen or less real 
than in the individual soul making its surrender 
to Christ. As every Church has a corporate life, 
every Church has a corporate self and a corporate 
selfishness. That corporate selfishness must be 
crucified, if Christ is to be enthroned in the life of 
that Church. The force of Christ's words must 
be recognized by each Church in its corporate life, 
as they are by each individual in his individual 
life : "He that findeth his life shall lose it ; and he 
that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." In 
the acceptance of Christ's Plan for its life, the 
Church comes to its Calvary. 

(2) There must be the fullest acceptance of the Accept Christ's 

Power. 

Power of Christ. Thus must the Church come 
also to Pentecost. The Holy Spirit's leadership 
must be made supreme and recognized as real. He 
must be leaned upon. Merely ethical preaching 
will give way to preaching which will make su- 
pernaturalism a reality, and recognize it as the 
proper atmosphere for all Christian life and ser- 
vice. The necessity for a careful discerning of 
spirits, will be no ground for refusing to the Holy 
Spirit the utmost freedom in His activities within 
the Church, nor for denying the reality of His 



200 god's plan for world redemption. 



Accept Christ's 
Presence. 



The Early- 
Church. 



Zinzendorf. 



free and personal operations. And the Power of 
Christ is needed to realize the Plan of Christ. 
But the Power of Christ will not be granted save 
for the Plan of Christ. Holy Spirit power can- 
not be commanded for the promotion of unsancti- 
fied aims and purposes. 

(3) There must be the fullest acceptance of the 
Presence of Christ. This will come naturally 
with the gift of the Spirit, but emphasis needs to 
be laid upon this characteristic of the missionary 
Church. Here the Church comes to the crowning 
of its life with joy. 

The life of the early Church is noteworthy be- 
cause of the vivid sense of the presence of Christ 
which we find distinguishing it. The Risen Lord 
was felt to be present, in the midst of His Church. 
Of Zinzendorf, also, we read, "The person of 
Christ became central in his theology and in his 
preaching and in the preaching of his brethren." 
And again, among the characteristic tenets which 
this great man held, we find the following enum- 
erated with special prominence : "the presentation 
of Christ as God, with an acceptance of all the 
consequences of this presentation: amongst the 
rest, prayer directly to Christ: .... the 
privilege of personal daily fellowship with the 
Lord Jesus in spite of unrealized unworthiness 
and personal sinfulness : the obligation and privi- 
lege of following the guidance and leading of the 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 201 

Lord, the chief Elder and Bishop of souls, the 
Good Shepherd, to Whom both the welfare of the 
individual Christian and the prosperity and pro- 
gress of the church are a care." 10 This conscious- 
ness of the personal presence of the Living Lord 
is the need of the Church to-day, so that it too 
may be able to say : 

"Loud mockers in the roaring street 
Say Christ is crucified again: 
Twice pierced His gospel-bearing feet, 
Twice broken His great heart in vain. 

"I hear and to myself I smile, 
For Christ talks with me all the while." 

We pass now from the general to the specific ; 
from the Church as a whole, or the church as a 
congregation, to the consideration of the particu- 
lar Church or denomination whose life calls for 
these missionary studies and to whose life the ma- 
jority of the readers of this book are related. 

The United Presbyterian Church 

The important question comes up, Has the a Definite 
United Presbyterian Church any definite share 
and responsibility in carrying the Gospel to all 
the world? It is not enough to say that it is the 
duty of the whole Church to carry the Gospel to 

19 J. T. Hamilton's "History of the Moravian Church." 



Task. 




THE MODEL MISSIONARY CHURCH 

This diagram illustrates the main features of a model missionary church. 
It is based upon the report of a Commission of twelve, appointed by four in- 
fluential bodies, representing the missionary activities of America : The Foreign 
Missions Conference of America, the Home Missions Council of America, the 
Young People's Missionary Movement and the Laymen's Missionary Movement. 
The Commission was appointed to define the main features of a standard Mission- 
ary church. 

(1) The inner circle indicates the machinery needed, — a Missionary Com- 
mittee. Circumstances must govern the formation of this committee, but such a 
committee is essential. 

(2) The next circle indicates the spheres which call for missionary cultiva- 
tion. There are six. It is not intended that the Missionary Committee shall 
itself cultivate all these spheres, but merely insure that an agency is at work 
cultivating them properly. 

(3) The outer circle indicates the four forms which missionary cultivation 
will assume : Educational, devotional, financial and practical. These relate 
roughly to the four topics : Information, prayer, giving, personal service. 



THE CHURCH AND GOD'S PLAN. 203 

the whole world. What is everybody's business 
becomes nobody's business. Then, too, if the 
United Presbyterian Church has a part to per- 
form, by what authority is the task assigned to 
her? We commonly speak of the foreign mis- 
sion fields of the United Presbyterian Church as 
being found in Egypt, India and the Egyptian 
Sudan. There are some 9,000,000 souls in Egypt, 
who need to be evangelized; there are 5,000,000 
in India, in the Punjab; there are also a million 
in the Egyptian Sudan. By what authority do 
we say that these 15,000,000 souls have been 
given to the United Presbyterian Church to evan- 
gelize? This is an important question. If this 
task was assigned through some accident, then 
to-morrow's accident may rid the Church of the 
burden of evangelizing these people. If some 
human reasoning assigned to the Church this 
task, may it not be that somebody else's reason- 
ing will relieve the Church of this task? But if 
God assigned it to the Church, then the Church 
cannot shirk the duty, nor unload it, nor repudi- 
ate it. The Church must finish the task. How 
then may we know whether God has assigned to 
the United Presbyterian Church these fields to 
evangelize ? 

In days of old, as we read in the Old Testa- urim and 

. . Thummim. 

ment, they had the Urim and Thummim. When 
anyone wished to know the will of God, yes or 



204 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

no, he consulted the Urim or Thummim. We do 
not know much about this oracle. We do know, 
these were two stones in the ephod of the high 
priest. Some have supposed that the priests could 
tell the will of God by the way that the stones 
flashed. Others have thought that the stones 
were tossed in the air, and that the will of God 
was known by the way in which they fell. At any 
rate, we read that there was this method of dis- 
covering the will of God. n It may be that many, 
in this day, wish that they might have the Urim 
and Thummim of old to relieve them of anxiety 
as they seek to discover the will of God. But if 
that is the only way in which we may discover 
the will of God, then we cannot know the will of 
God on this subject, nor on any other subject. 
Surely, however, there is some way of knowing 
God's will. 
The way and There is a beautiful sermon by the Rev. Wil- 

tne Leading. J 

Ham M. Taylor, D.D., entitled, "The Way and the 
Leading." Dr. Taylor lays hold of that incident 
in the Old Testament, where the servant of the 
Patriarch is sent to a far country, to "the old 
country," to find a wife for the son of the Patri- 
arch. And the servant comes into this distant 
land, and he sits by the well, watching the peo- 
ple come and go. He does not know which way 
to turn, which home to visit. In his perplexity, 

"Num. 27: 21. 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 205 

he prays to God. And just here there slips into 
the narrative the beautiful words which we find 
in the old version, "I, being in the way, the Lord 
led me." And Dr. Taylor shows that when we 
are in the way of faith, and in the way of prayer, 
and in the way of duty, we are led of the Lord, 
just as truly and just as surely, as was the ser- 
vant of the Patriarch almost 4,000 years ago. 

Of Divine Assignment 

If anyone will study the history of the en- Divinely Ap- 
trance of the United Presbyterian Church into its 
several mission fields, he will recognize the hand 
of God guiding the Church to these fields and as- 
signing to the Church the task of evangelizing 
their peoples. 

( 1 ) We were in the way of prayer : It was at The way of 
a prayer-meeting, in Allegheny, that five persons, 
— Messrs. John Alexander and James McCand- 
less, Mrs. Gordon, Mrs. Lockhart, and Dr. Rodg- 
ers, — were led to consider India as a field for 
missionary work. The selection of the little 
prayer-meeting became the selection of the con- 
gregation. The selection of the congregation be- 
came, after prayer, the choice of the Synod, and 
thus of one branch of our Church. Those who 
have read the history of our India Mission will 
recall too, that not by immediate advances, but 



206 god's plan for world redemption. 

after repeated disappointments in other direc- 
tions, the first missionary, the Rev. Andrew Gor- 
don, was selected for appointment to this distant 
field. His own account of those days of begin- 
ning shows how much of prayer entered into his 
own life plans. 

Now, what was so true of the founding of our 
India Mission was likewise true of our Missions 
in Egypt and the Sudan. We were in the way of 
prayer, and can say, Surely God led us. 
providence. ( 2 ) We were in the way of providential guid- 

ance: How clearly is this illustrated in the be- 
ginning of our Mission in Egypt. We then had 
a mission in Syria. This mission showed little 
or no progress. The rule of the Turk prevented 
missionary expansion. Political troubles threat- 
ened what work existed. Ill-health then led a 
missionary to Egypt. This resulted in the dis- 
covery of the unoccupied, the equally needy, the 
more salubrious, the far more open, field for mis- 
sionary activity which existed in the Nile Valley. 
This unity of events lying wholly within the con- 
trol of a divine Providence, led to the opening of 
the Egyptian Mission. 

So, too, was it with our Sudan Mission. For 
decades our missionary activity was limited to the 
First Cataract. Beyond this, lay a hermit nation, 
— the Egyptian Sudan. The White Nile was ev- 
erywhere the synonym for death. There were no 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 207 

convenient means of transportation. There was 
no safe government; there was, apparently, no 
sufficient incentive for an invasion of the Sudan, 
whether for gain or for glory, whether for com- 
merce or for missionary effort. Then came the 
Mahdi war, the martyrdom of Gordon, the Kitch- 
ener campaigns, the victory at Omdurman, the 
conquest of the Sudan. The name of Gordon stir- 
red the home Church. The British Government 
removed every physical danger. Still our Church 
hesitated. Then God suddenly raised up in Great 
Britain a sum of money which would suffice to be- 
gin the Mission. Still we delayed. Then God 
thrust forth into the Sudan, in government ser- 
vice, the young men of our Egyptian Church and 
Mission, and the Church was literally compelled 
to occupy this, our most recent mission field. We 
were in the way of providential circumstances be- 
yond human reasoning or control, and God led us. 

(3) We were also in the way of an exclusive An Exclusive 

rr>1 . - r - Commission. 

commission. 1 here is scarcely any surer proof of 
a divine commission than the continued absence 
of any overlapping with others in the execution of 
that commission. 

Would that there were opportunity to point out 
adequately the absolute responsibility which re- 
lates us to the millions of our mission fields. I go 
to India. I see every mission occupying a clearly- 
defined territory. To this canal or river or high- 



208 god's plan for world redemption. 



Egypt. 



The Sudan. 



way, is the field of one Mission. Beyond it is the 
field of another. Each Mission is taxed by the 
greatness of its own field, and has neither the de- 
sire nor the ability to enter another's field. Within 
this territory, then, are five million people, who, 
unless they receive the Gospel from United Pres- 
byterian missionaries, must, so far as human vis- 
ion avails, go down to Christless graves. 

I go to Egypt. I mark how for twenty-five 
years our Mission there was the only missionary 
organization operating in that most historic, most 
attractive, most accessible mission field. I see 
that even now, where other missionary societies 
have come in, they recognize the local character 
of their work, so that the Nile Valley, in almost 
its entirety, has been and still is practically the 
exclusive field of the United Presbyterian 
Mission. With the most liberal concessions pos- 
sible to the responsibilities of other missionary 
agencies, there are in Egypt some nine million 
souls looking to us for the Gospel. 

I go to the Sudan. I speak with the Governor 
General of the Sudan, Sir Reginald Wingate, and 
he tells me that his government has assigned ex- 
clusively to our Mission the great water-shed of 
the Sobat River. I stand over against these 
providential exclusions of other agencies and the 
exclusive assignment of these fields to our 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 2CXJ 

Church, and I see in these a new and a divine 
vindication of the way in which God has led us. 

These are not theories. These are facts, facts pacts Theories ' 
of the history of a half century of missions, and 
"facts are the fingers of God." To refuse to ac- 
cept as a divine assignment the obligations 
which rest upon us for the evangelization of some 
fifteen million souls in Egypt, India and the Su- 
dan, is to ignore a divine providence, and to do 
violence to the fundamental principle of a faith 
which believes in a God of history. There is a 
better way than to refuse. It is to accept our di- 
vinely assigned commission and go forth to obey. 

Past Effort Justified 

A second question is asked, Have the mission- Justified. 
ary beginnings of the past half century been 
such as to justify the Church in going forward 
with confidence to the completion of this work? 
We say "missionary beginnings," for we shall 
presently see that these past efforts have only 
been beginnings. Let us recognize now, how- 
ever, that these efforts have been wonderfully 
approved of God. It would require an examina- 
tion of the history of each of our fields, to ade- 
quately illustrate this statement. Here, we can 
only point to a few outstanding successes. 

(i) There is numerical progress. It is said 

14 



2IO GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

Numbers. that we Americans are ever quoting figures, 

counting both dollars and souls, instead of weigh- 
ing them. However, discount figures as one 
may, there yet remains sufficient force in those 
which we shall give, to warrant their presenta- 
tion. 

Remember that it is but little over five decades 
since the sailing vessel "Sabine," left New York 
harbor, bearing across the sea our first mission- 
aries to India, — one man and two women, — inex- 
perienced pioneers they were, unequipped with 
that vast machinery of missions which these suc- 
ceeding centuries have provided, unsupported by 
the experience and prestige of recent decades of 
missionary effort; and they went forth to cope, 
single-handed, with difficulties great in them- 
selves, and greater because unknown and un- 
measured. To-day, we look to India and find not 
merely converts, not merely organized congrega- 
tions, but presbyteries and a synod, — the throb- 
bing life of an organic Christianity. One pres- 
bytery yonder, that of Gujranwala, is larger in 
membership than any presbytery we have in 
America, save one, that of Monongahela. An- 
other presbytery yonder, that of Sialkot, is 
larger than the combined Synods of Colorado 
and California, while the entire Synod of the Pun- 
jab ranks third among the thirteen synods which 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 211 

constitute our United Presbyterian Church in the 
world. 

The beginnings of our work in Egypt consti- No converts, 
tuted a trial of faith. One year passed, and there 
were no converts. Two, three, four years, and 
no converts! The fifth year closed and there 
were but four, and only two of these were na- 
tives of Egypt, yet to-day we have more com- 
municants in the Nile Valley than in the entire 
Synod of Illinois ; while the ingatherings are lit- 
tle less than a thousand every year. 

Group our foreign churches together, and you one-fifth 
will find that one-fifth of the membership of the Abroa<? 
United Presbyterian Church is across the sea. 
Were we addressing any audience representing 
perfectly our United Presbyterian Church in the 
world, the address would need to be translated, 
into one foreign tongue to benefit every tenth 
person, and into another foreign tongue to bring 
it within the reach of another of every ten per- 
sons. Some fifty years ago, the Associate 
Church, which helped to form the United Pres- 
byterian Church, had some 23,500 members, but 
our foreign churches to-day exceed that number 
by over nine thousand. 

And the significance of this numerical growth 
lies in the fact, that in the last ten years that for- 
eign membership has increased two hundred and 
sixty-one per cent. 



212 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

Quality. ( 2 ) To numerical progress, we may add certain 

attainments that are not to be set forth in mere 
figures. We could refer to the quality of the 
Christian life that is being developed across the 
sea, in the midst of Islam, Hinduism and Pagan- 
ism. 

m the Night. "How deeply was I affected," wrote Mr. Krui- 
denier recently from Egypt, "when, in a certain 
place in this district, having laid me down to 
rest, at a late hour, a voice unexpectedly broke 
upon the stillness of the night. I listened and 
wondered. It was the voice of prayer, and as it 
continued and grew in intensity and earnestness, 
I could distinguish the voice of the teacher and 
hear his petition. At this late hour of the night, 
he prayed aloud. He prayed for himself and for 
his work, for forgiveness and strength, for wis- 
dom and consecration, for fearlessness and faith- 
fulness ; for his loved ones he prayed, for his pu- 
pils, for his townsfolk, and especially for Islam, 
that the Moslems of his country might be saved ; 
and as I listened, I too could not help but pray. 
At last, there seemed to be no strength any more 
and the voice ceased. ,, 

But for many such illustrations there is not 
space. 

Liberality and (3) The measurement of past success must 
also take into consideration the promotion of a 
spirit of liberality and self-support in our work 



Self- Support. 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 213 

abroad. There is a double value to progress in 
this direction. On the one hand, where we find 
this spirit, we are assured of the genuineness of 
the work for Christ. There is no occasion for 
any suspicion that the conversions are for the 
sake of the "loaves and fishes." On the other 
hand, the maintenance of Christian institutions 
by the people to whom these institutions minis- 
ter, releases our American funds for further 
work elsewhere. We do well to prize highly 
every sign of progress in liberality and self-sup- 
port. 

It is the distinctive glory of our Missions 
abroad that they are leaders in this movement. 
In India, it was on the tide of a great revival that 
this movement toward self-support came into 
prominence, and to-day we have there twenty- 
five congregations that are entirely self-support- 
ing. And this is in the face of a poverty so 
great, that we are prepared to say, that there is 
not one person reading these lines who would 
even consent to such self-support, if he were to 
see out of what material limitations Indian Chris- 
tians give. Indeed, our India Mission has been 
criticised more than once for its insistence on 
self-support. But we may put over against that 
superficial criticism the deep connection that has 
always existed between the self-support move- 
ment and the great experiences of revival that 



214 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



Liberality. 



Reflex Bless- 
ings. 



have come to that field. The instances are not 
few where one-tenth of the entire crop of grain 
at harvest time — the only revenue of an Indian 
farmer, — has been set aside for God's treasury. 

In Egypt, there are twenty-two self-support- 
ing pastorates and over $50,000 was given last 
year for Church purposes. But think of the 
great scope of our missionary operations in the 
Nile Valley: 70 churches ministering to some 
10,000 church members, 18 schools training some 
17,000 pupils, medical work touching some 50,000 
sick, and a book department distributing some 
70,000 volumes and religious works,- — a vast en- 
terprise! "Our missionary operations," did we 
say? We take undue credit. The operation of 
this great work involves the annual expenditure 
of more than $290,000, but, mark this, less than 
forty cents of every dollar expended comes from 
these United States, — more than three-fifths is 
derived from Egypt itself. 

(4) There are many other manifestations of 
God's blessing upon our work which ought to be 
named, such as the development of the organic 
life of our Mission churches, the providential 
over-rulings and protection displayed through a 
half-century of labor, experiences of revival so 
dramatic and yet so abiding. We pass these all 
by, to speak of the reflex influence for good of 
this foreign missionary effort upon the life of the 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 21 5 

home Church, for if this be established, then our 
past missionary efforts must be justified to the 
last disbeliever in missions. 

It is a special danger of a small denomination, Breadth of 
that it shall lack in breadth of vision and breadth 
of sympathy. It is not likely to lack in earnest- 
ness, but it is likely to lack in breadth of out- 
look, simply because of the pressure put upon it 
to preserve and develop its own life. Without 
false pride, may we not claim that our Church 
has escaped this danger? She is not to-day a 
sect, but a part of God's great army. She recog- 
nizes her responsibility, not to minister to a few 
settlements of people, but to carry her share of 
the burden of evangelizing and Christianizing 
America. We are not stating more than the truth 
when we say that no single factor in maintaining 
and developing this broad outlook in our Church, 
can compare with the influence exerted upon the 
life of the home Church by her foreign mission- 
ary activities. 

That the same helpful, — not hindering, — influ- Gifts, 
ence was exerted upon the gifts of the Church to 
her own work in America, through the stimulus 
of her obligations abroad, is easily proved. Dur- 
ing the past nine years which are regarded as 
years of special foreign missionary agitation, the 
average percentage of increase in gifts over each 
preceding year, has been to foreign missions 



216 god's plan for world redemption. 

three and three-tenths per cent, to home missions 
seven and six-tenths per cent. 

We may quote here the words which the Sec- 
retary of our own Home Board spoke at a Ju- 
bilee Foreign Missionary Convention in 1904: 
"Other influences have been working to increase 
the offerings of our people to the support and ex- 
tension of the work of our Church, but the very 
noticeable enlargement of such gifts during the 
past fifty years, is, undoubtedly, in great measure 
due to the reflex influence of our foreign mission- 
ary work." 

In the presence of these facts, — numerical pro- 
gress, the development of Christian character 
in the midst of heathenism, the spirit of liberality 
and self-support in the native churches abroad 
and the reflex blessing of missionary activity on 
the life of the home Church, — may we not assert 
with confidence that God has justified and vindi- 
cated the beginning of our effort to discharge 
our missionary obligation? 

Present Agencies Inadequate 

A third question now needs to be asked: Are 
our missionary agencies adequate for the accom~ 
plishment of the task before us? We would not 
weaken any statement made as to the marvelous 
extension of the work during past years. But 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 217 

in the face of all that has been said concerning 
the blessing of God upon our work, there is need 
to inquire concerning the adequacy of our pres- 
ent agencies. There is danger of so glorying 
over the successes of the past, as to forget the 
needs which remain. There is such a thing as 
idealizing the past, when that past represents 
years not of God's working, but of man's delay. 
In our field in India, it is estimated that some 
7,000,000 have gone down to Christless graves 
since we began to labor there, because at no time 
have our missionary agencies been adequate for 
the presentation of Christ to them. In Egypt, 
some 12,000,000 have so passed away. Was this 
God's will or was it human negligence ? To-day 
our missionary agencies are calculated to suf- 
fice for the evangelization of some 3,000,000 dur- 
ing an entire generation. But there are 15,000,- 
000 in our mission fields. Is it God's will that we 
should leave 12,000,000 to die without even hear- 
ing of Christ, or is it human negligence and sin? 2f t in g e S!n«r 
Is it God's will that in these foreign fields some 
400,000 shall die each year without having had 
a chance to know of the only Savior of mankind ? 
Our Church glories in its orthodoxy, in its loy- 
alty to Jesus Christ as the only Mediator and Sa- 
vior. But we hold such a faith to our own con- 
demnation, unless we parallel it with missionary 
zeal, for, as some one has said, "Can you con- 



218 god's plan for world redemption. 

ceive of anything more fatal, more monstrous, 
more immoral, than a doctrine which declares 
men lost without Christ, and then refuses to make 
Christ known to them?" 
a simple Com- Let us face the fact: Our present missionary 
agencies are inadequate for the doing of the thing 
which we claim to be trying to do. Perhaps this 
can be made clear by a simple comparison. Take 
a community of one thousand souls thoroughly 
representative of religious conditions in America. 
Out of these 1,000 persons, more than 250 would 
be Christians, members of evangelical Christian 
churches, and the majority of the others would at 
least want to be called Christians, no matter what 
our own personal opinion of them might be. 
Among these 250 Christian church members, 
there would be six ordained ministers and many 
trained Christian workers. Now we take a simi- 
lar group of one thousand souls thoroughly rep- 
resentative of religious conditions in our mission 
fields of Egypt, India and the Sudan. Out of 
these 1,000 persons there would not be 250 Chris- 
tians ; there would be two Christian church mem- 
bers. And how many ordained ministers? Not 
six, not even one ; but we would need to bring to- 
gether more than 116 such groups before we 
would reach the average parish of each ordained 
minister, — and this is counting every ordained 
man, whether foreign or native. 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 219 

It is true that we have with us "the God of g^f elves and 
impossibilities/' and we read "five of you shall 
chase a hundred and a hundred of you shall 
chase ten thousand." But it is also true that in 
the spiritual conquest of the world, human agen- 
cies must bear some proper relation to the work 
which is to be accomplished, and God will not 
permit men to make faith in Him the subterfuge 
for spiritual sloth and selfishness. 

We Can and Must 

In the presence of the divine commission The impera- 
which the United Presbyterian Church has re- 
ceived and in the presence of a task which is so 
sadly unfulfilled, the Church can and must carry 
this work through to its completion. With our 
missionary obligation clearly defined, with the 
proper methods and agencies for missionary work 
fully discovered through the experiences of the 
past, with a full consciousness of the inadequacy 
of our present missionary force, it remains for 
us now to actually do what has hitherto only been 
begun. 

And a rare advantage is at hand as this task is 
undertaken. We have at hand an estimate, — the 
estimate of experts, — of what is needed to evan- 
gelize our foreign fields. Our missionaries in 
each field met for days to consider this question, 



220 GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 

and their answer came to us in appeals for 485 
missionaries. Lest any are led to believe that 
these answers express snap judgment or mere 
enthusiasm, let us add, that since these appeals 
were issued, other Missions have considered this 
question, and their answers are parallel with 
those of our Missions. 
Fourfold in- Let us add, further, that quite recently these 

crease. . . . , ' , , . 

missionaries reviewed the whole question, and 
their present judgment confirms their former 
judgment, — the present force must be quad- 
rupled, some 400 missionaries must be added to 
the force in the field, and our present foreign 
missionary budget must advance from some 
$300,000 to $1,250,000 a year, 
can w©? In the face of this definition of our task, we 

dare say it: We can. It is pitiful that such a 
statement should require proof. To do this work 
is only to ask for one missionary volunteer from 
every third congregation in the denomination. 
It is only to ask one life out of every 335 mem- 
bers of the Church. During the Civil War, Kan- 
sas gave one soldier to every five and eight- 
tenths of her population, Illinois one to every six 
and seven-tenths of her population, and will one 
to every 335 members be too great a demand 
upon sons of the Covenanters, when the Son of 
God leads forth to His holy war ? 
We have spoken of quadrupling our present 



THE CHURCH AND GOD'S PLAN. 221 

budget to foreign missions. At first thought, 
many are inclined to exclaim, Impossible, — sim- 
ply because they have unconsciously thought that 
the statement carried with it the demand for a 
quadrupling of all our gifts. This is not so. Of 
the total gifts of the Church, one-third is for the 
salaries of ministers. There is no proposition 
here to multiply by four the present salary budget 
in America. Another third of what is contrib- 
uted is for congregational expenses, and there is 
no proposition here to multiply these by four. 
We submit the following test: Think of what 
you gave last year to the cause of foreign mis- 
sions. Do you dare say here before God, that it 
is not possible, that it would be even seriously in- 
convenient, for you to quadruple that amount? 
Yes, to quadruple our foreign missionary budget 
would be to strain (?) the resources of the 
United Presbyterian Church in America, by ask- 
ing from each member less than two cents a day. 
We can do it. 

And, we must. We must for the sake of our we Must, 
foreign fields. It would require a separate chap- 
ter to show how in Egypt, India, the Sudan, the 
same open door by which the missionary may 
enter, is being sought by thousands of hostile in- 
fluences ; how the fields white unto spiritual har- 
vest, where not harvested at once, are becoming 




WHERE THE CHURCH DOLLAR GOES 

The records show that the United Presbyterian Church of North America con- 
tributed last year $2,427,617. Where did it go? 

Where does the Church dollar go? 

Sixty-eight cents of every dollar go toward the local expenses of the congre- 
gation : pastor's salary and other expenses. 

Nine cents go to General Contributions ; for the most part local benevolences 
apart from Church support. 

Twenty-three cents — less than one-fourth of the dollar — go to missionary 
causes, at home and abroad. Did Christ say, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." 

Of every Church dollar, ninety-one cents stay in America, nine cents go 
abroad. It is scarcely accurate to say that foreign missions are being overdone. 
Again we ask, did Christ say, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Did He mean it? 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 223 

fields hardened against decades of missionary ef- 
fort. 

We must for the sake of our missionaries. It is s££ e Their 
simply breaking them down to-day to stand over 
against the overwhelming need and under the 
overwhelming obligation, with the limited supply 
and the limited strength which is theirs. 

We must do it for the sake of our Church in For 0ur Sake - 
America. We have had this ideal of actually 
evangelizing our fields presented to us. We have 
enthroned it, by General Assembly resolution and 
endorsement, among the purposes of our Church. 
We have declared to the world that this was our 
aim, and we have not seriously undertaken it. If 
we would save ourselves from double dealing 
with God, if we would safeguard our sensitive- 
ness to the leading of the Spirit, if we would pre- 
vent the hardening of our spiritual nature, we 
must no longer talk nor resolve, we must pro- 
ceed to do what is to be done. 

To do this, will require that every minister and fj r ery Minis - 
pastor give this enterprise his best thought. He 
will need first to accept the ideal of actually evan- 
gelizing our mission fields. He will then need to 
discover what the realization of that ideal will 
require of him and of his congregation. And 
then he must proceed to create in his congrega- 
tion those conditions, which, if duplicated in 



224 G0D s PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION. 



Every Chris- 
tian. 



Another 
Vision. 



every congregation in our denomination, would 
mean the full realization of the ideal. 

Every individual Christian in his own per- 
sonal life will also be called upon to accept the 
ideal. He will need to ask in his prayer life, in 
his life of stewardship, in his home life, what de- 
mands this will make of him. And then, he, too, 
must seek to establish in his life those condi- 
tions which, if reproduced in other lives of our 
Church, will mean the full realization of this 
ideal of the evangelization of our mission fields. 

The Church stands at a "decisive hour." We 
tremble to think how meaningless, how inglori- 
ous, the future may be, unless there shall be 
lifted ideals worthy of the strength we now pos- 
sess and the opportunity now set before us. 

But there rises another vision. It is the vis- 
ion of a Church, "having the glory of God" rest- 
ing upon it, surrendering the powers of its or- 
ganic life, as individuals in ages gone by have 
surrendered the powers of their individual lives, 
fully to the realization of God's will upon earth, 
its corporate life made subservient to this one 
aim and dominated by this one ambition, "To 
win for the Lamb that was slain the reward of 
His sufferings." I see this Church, baptized with 
a new power, — the Power of God for the Work 
of God. I see a new beauty transforming its 
character, a new grace adorning its brow, as it 



THE CHURCH AND GOD S PLAN. 225 

enters into a fellowship with its Lord, deeper 
than has yet been claimed by any Church upon 
earth. I see this Church preparing, for the 
Marriage Supper of the Lamb, the expressions 
of its love for its Lord: three sections of the 
world, evangelized by its missionary labors and 
Christianized by the accompanying power of its 
Lord. I see this Church fully surrendered to its 
Lord, entirely responsive to His will, absolutely 
obedient to His bidding, used of God for spir- 
itual leadership in the world. And, across the 
longer or shorter stretches of Time, stands the 
Son of God, seeing of the travail of His soul and 
satisfied ! It is ours to make this vision true in 
the life of our Church. 



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